Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Once a meeting ends, the after meeting begins and the real work is done. Can we do this better?

I’ve seen it a thousand times—literally a thousand times. I’ve attended that many meetings. The meeting has its agenda and participants. The meeting is conducted. We are finished.

People stay in the room or the hallway just outside the room or (my least favorite) in the bathroom down the hall. “Ya’ know,” begins the after-meeting conversation, “I was thinking while we were talking in the meeting, and …”

What ensues is the best exchange of ideas all day. The after meeting brings much better information to a limited audience than the meeting did.

Several thoughts:

• Maybe the limited audience of the after meeting was a smaller, better size.
• Maybe the limited audience of the after meeting had just the right people and no one else.
• Maybe the actual meeting should have had scheduled quiet times where people could think before the next topic was raised.
• Maybe the agenda of the actual meeting was wrong.
• Maybe the actual meeting was designed to limit thought and ideas.
• Maybe we are doing the actual meetings all wrong.

Perhaps the last bullet summarizes all of this: we are doing the meetings all wrong. The free form of the after meeting is a much better format for thought and ideas.

Let’s do better. Here is one suggestion; at some point in the actual meeting (on the agenda) someone stands and says, “We aren’t having any after meetings. This is it, folks. Let’s take a five-minute break (actually timed) with no talking during the break. After the break, we will chat like we usually do in after meetings. Let’s officially capture all those usually-said-in-the-after-meetings thoughts. And, there will be a 24-hour period where anyone can add to the meeting notes with an email or something.”

Let’s do better.