Five Ways a Bad Meeting Could Actually Be Good
Does the phrase “meeting hygiene” make your heart sing? Maybe not, but meetings have been a source of pain for many years, and now we have the special bonus of Zoom meetings. It makes sense that people want to do something about it. But sometimes the desire to improve meetings has made them just a little too neat. Sometimes what we really need occurs only when we make space for a little mess. Here are a few “messy” ways bad meetings can be our friend.
We don’t meet the objectives. If you meet the objectives for every meeting, like everything in life, maybe you’re not being bold enough. What if we set out there objectives that take the conversation to really interesting places … but without a check the box conclusion?
There’s real conflict. What if we allow people to work through issues that are inhibiting us as a team … and we talk about stuff people thought untouchable? Although this may feel uncomfortable at first, productive conflict is so critical it’s basically a competitive advantage.
They are loose and unstructured. Tight agendas are generally good, but sometimes they tie our hands. Sometimes we need to share what is on our minds and rebuild the human connection. Allowing people to talk in a loose way allows space for conversations we didn’t know we needed.
People get uncomfortable. Maybe some people need to feel how they are letting the rest of the team down, either in what they’re delivering or how they’re showing up. Another way to put this is: it gets personal.
It gets emotional. Emotions are a language of truth and authenticity. Speaking from the brain is the norm but it has limits. Emotions can be raw … and they open doors.
For whoever is leading the meeting, it takes some guts to let a meeting be “bad” so that it might possibly be great. You’ll never get criticized for running a tight, agenda-driven meeting. But sometimes you need to go out on a limb.