Evaero

Aerospace machining, CNC machining, titanium castings

  • Capabilities
  • About Us
  • Visiting Evaero
  • Work For Evaero
  • Contact Us

Four Ways To Spend Less Time in Meetings

December 4, 2014 Christian Frueh Topics: Leadership

spend less time in meetings

In this last post in a triptych that will complete our conversation about meetings, I wanted to offer a few suggestions to help you have fewer of them.  (If you’d like to catch up, the first is meetings and the demise of the productive workplace and the second is finding a larger purpose with meetings. and getting little done in the process.)

Suggestion 1: Empower your staff to make decisions

If you empower people to make decisions, you avoid many meetings that are about decision avoidance or decision approval. I’m a “trust but verify” kind of guy so don’t get me wrong: I’m not suggesting you abandon ship. Rather, by defining concrete boundaries I can trust my employees to make good decisions, knowing they’ll ask for guidance and approval when they need it.

Suggestion 2: Leverage new technology to have fewer meetings

At Evaero, we keep what amounts to a running internal blog on everything of consequence in our organization. As such, many of the conversations that normally happen in meetings now happen in the blog. The beauty of this is we can each engage in the conversation on our own schedule and keep a pulse on things without sitting in a never ending meeting.

Suggestion 3: Make sure it’s not about you

I’ve sat in many a meeting when it’s clear to me the meeting is about the guy who called it. Don’t be that guy. In terms of general meetings I try to ensure the focus is on:

  • Learning
  • Celebrating
  • Managing change
  • Debating
  • Reminding (mission, vision, and values)
  • Moving things through organizational silos

In terms of 121s with direct reports, I keep my meetings short and structured and use a standard agenda (see here for a copy of my agenda). I’ll talk more about 121s in a future post but, by spending most of my time listening and asking questions, I find they are a great way to learn about the person sitting in front of you and your organization.

Suggestion 4: Be mindful

Be mindful of how meetings may inadvertently be disrupting the lives of your staff and your workplace. Jason Fried’s TED Talk which has been viewed over three million times is a great place to start convincing yourself this is an issue worth taking seriously.

Before signing out, in case you haven’t heard of them, I thought I’d introduce you to the duo Shovels and Rope. Their new album Swimmin’ Time is quite good but I wanted to leave you with their song Birmingham which I heard for the first time on KXCI while driving my son to school. It’s a semi-autobiographical story of how married singer/songwriters Michael Trent and Cary Ann Hearst became Shovels & Rope.

Until next week, do remember, “it aint what you’ve got, it’s what you make.”

Cheers…xian

Video not displaying properly? Click here.

 

Photo Credit: jonas_k via Compfight cc

Print Friendly, PDF & EmailPrintFriendly
Share this article:
Share on facebook
Facebook
Share on google
Google
Share on twitter
Twitter
Share on linkedin
Linkedin
Share on email
Email
Share on buffer
Buffer

About Christian Frueh

With a Ph.D in Materials Science and Engineering and a minor in Anthropology, Christian is a thoughtful leader who looks at things from a scientific perspective: Solve problems, don’t make assumptions.

Read more about Christian

Latest from the blog

The Role of Weight in Casting to Hog-out Conversions

September 17, 2015

ISO quality management system

Failing More Often: Gaining from Randomness and Volatility

February 5, 2015

Improving Precision CNC Aerospace Machining

January 22, 2015

About Evaero

Evaero is a modern manufacturing firm delivering custom machined components to the aerospace and defense industry.

Learn more

Print Friendly, PDF & EmailPrintFriendly

Connect With Evaero

  • Email
  • RSS

Phone:
775-5EV-AERO
(775.538.2376)

Address: 

3807 E. Kleindale Rd.
Tucson, AZ 85716

Print Friendly, PDF & EmailPrintFriendly
© 2023 Manufacturing Peace of Mind, LLC. All rights reserved.
 Twitter
 Facebook