I flagged an unhelpful behaviour in an article I wrote called “Removing Frustrations.” I took a pot-shot at Update & Justification Meetings, but I stopped short of sharing a detailed alternative. A friend suggested I offer what I might suggest instead. Fair comment, and an important challenge. Thanks Jill!

I’ll offer some practical alternatives by the end, but I actually think the first step is to examine why this type of meeting exists in the first place. If we can figure out what needs exist, we get to be creative about how we address them.

As we ask “Why” we’re going to have to get really honest. The truth is, this Update & Justification meeting likely doesn’t exist for the energy and effectiveness it offers. It exists because there’s something that isn’t quite working – and my guess is that rather than examining and tackling the underlying issue, the time-honoured and reactive response was “have a meeting.”

It’s the organizational equivalent of cutting your lawn with a weed-wacker because the mower broke down. We’re essentially saying, “I need you at a specific time and place. You will share a progress report with me. To make it most effective for me, it will be sandwiched in a series of reports with a number of your peers and I will ask you probing, detailed questions as follow-up.” It serves some needs, but efficiently?

These practical alternatives cut across a few of these potential needs. I hope you see that they’re insufficent for your situation. Now that we’ve examined the potential drivers, first, you’re better served by designing a solution that addresses your unique needs.

Intentional Meetings

Let’s start off with a bit of a generic response. Having a purpose and desired outcome for a meeting makes a massive difference. Even your regular, weekly meeting can have more intention than “it’s our routine.” How about Team Alignment, Clear Priorities and No Roadblocks?

Live Agendas

Certainly it depends on the purpose of the meeting, but especially for that recurring team meeting, I strongly encourage agenda creation on the fly. This is a meeting for everyone, so everyone should have the opportunity to bring up what serves them to meet the purpose.

Binary Questions at the Start of the Meeting

At the regular meeting, there are typically some habits, essential behaviours or recurring tasks that we want to check on. An expedited process for doing that check is by asking a team-endorsed question that can be answered with a thumbs up or thumbs down, answered by everyone at the same time. It’s either a yes or a no. Some that I have appreciated are:

👍 My weekly sales report is up to date in our shared spreadsheet.

👍 I’ve advised the Operations Manager about any inventory discreprancies.

👎 Any roadblock I encountered was addressed within 24 hours.

👍 I am on track with my personal development plan.

The real focused fun is when our peers feel comfortable to honestly report a thumbs down to the question. “You reported that roadblocks weren’t addressed in a timely fashion. What do you need? How can we get better?” Tip: Don’t inquire right when it happens! Just finish asking the binary questions, first. Add your follow-up inquiry as an agenda item – “Jill’s roadblock?”

A plan for sharing information

My sincere hope is that we can establish reasonable expectations with each other to provide and consume information in a more helpful way than verbally. “I’ll save you an hour a week of meetings if you commit to keeping the spreadsheet up to date at the end of each day. Additionally, I promise I won’t randomly ask for status updates without checking the spreadsheet, first.”

Only reporting CHANGES

If we are doing project updates in a meeting, we can at least cut down on the storytelling. How about if we all agree that our colleagues are brilliant, creative and dynamic? Do we really need to have it demonstrated each week in story form? [Maybe yes, but let’s make that the purpose of a separate meeting.] For the regular team meeting, I suspect that all we may really need to know and share with each other is any significant changes to the project. If a group report is necessary, it is to keep our colleagues aware of status changes or new facts.

So, instead of

“Remember how I said Mr. Johnson was sick in June? I sent him a get well package with soup and cold medicine. He loved it. His wife asked where I ordered the soup and we ended up having lunch at my favourite bistro last Tuesday. She actually knows three other…

… and then, at the wedding reception, I landed the contract!”

How about

“Johnson Tooling signed on for a three year contract.”

And if that other information is relevant, perhaps an agenda item

“Personal Connections Activities to Boost Sales”

*I said I have never willfully ignored a boss’ request before. That’s actually not true. I have, but I did it explictly, intentionally and with an abundance of rationale and explaination. [See Flowers & Innovation for more.] More accurately, I have never neglected a request with hopes that the boss would forget.