To make your meetings more effective, take some inspiration from a Hollywood awards show. It can help your team save time and get more done.
Many organizations design their meetings based on Robert’s Rules of Order, which was published in 1876. While these guidelines are very useful for government meetings, where you want to ensure fairness and transparency, they may not fit your organization’s needs.
Most businesses look to meetings to help them achieve something and time is a valuable commodity. Under Robert’s Rules, you don’t get to new business until item number eight. For some, they arrive late because they don’t see the value in sitting through the reading of the meeting minutes.
Let’s instead consider how Hollywood runs an award show. There are some important lessons that you can apply to your boardroom and make your meetings more effective.
The Red Carpet & Effective Meetings
An award show begins on the red carpet where stars show off the latest fashions and issue soundbites about their productions to the press. The interactions are short.
Your red carpet experience is the preparation for the meeting. This is where you issue background information on the issues that will be discussed.
Don’t think of this as a data dump. Think soundbites. While some may want detailed information, most will appreciate a summary. It’s okay to issue both but assume that most will only read the summary.
If an issue is very complex and takes a long time to explain, then it may not be ready for a meeting. Ideas take longer to discuss than options.
A Big Opening Can Make Your Meetings More Effective
A challenge for a lot of businesses is getting everyone to the meeting on time. Spending valuable minutes waiting for people or catching them up on developments wastes time.
Hollywood understands that in an awards show, a major award needs to be given out very early in the production. You have to give viewers a reason to tune in at the start. Have something important happen at the start of your meetings that attendees will feel they can’t miss.
This could be the announcement of a goal, a department competition award, or something else that is important to know but has been kept secret from attendees.
A variation on this theme would have those in attendance at the start of a meeting get an advantage, like the choice of a committee, while those arriving late will be told where they’re serving.
Find ways to incentivize on time attendance. Just this strategy alone can help shorten your meetings.
But Aren’t Award Shows Too Long?
Yes, they often are and in this case you’re taking inspiration from Hollywood on what not to do. Long acceptance speeches slow down productions.
In your case, the long acceptance speech may be tangents that come up during a meeting. For instance, a discussion about buying new computers turns into a debate about the current cost of commercial real estate.
While real estate costs may be good to discuss, that’s not the issue at hand. The computer question should be settled first and it should be decided if the tangent should be discussed at a future meeting.
If it’s not an emergency, spontaneous discussion items should not be allowed to become part of the session. It’s better to wait, gather background information for all, and then give the item time at a future meeting.
Final Thought
To make your meeting more effective, you’ll need to think of these sessions like a glitzy production, designed to engage an audience.
