How to Survive Meeting Madness
Meetings are the worst the path to a successful project.
As a creative professional, I find that every project requires a unique vision for how to execute it properly.
If you’re an artist painting a singular, beautiful picture, the vision can be left to your own imagination and sensibilities.
If you’re a designer making an object or a building for other people, the vision may be far more collaborative by necessity.
Getting Started
At work I find myself in the early stages of an exciting, new design project.
For me, that means one thing—asking questions.
Why?
Questions lead to parameters.
Parameters lead to metrics.
Metrics allow you to create something that can be deemed “successful.”
Often the fastest way from questions to metrics is meeting with other humans.
Meeting Madness
Enter the “Meeting.”
To be fair, I don’t know too many people who love meetings. That’s especially true in the age of Zoom. But without meetings, a project soon meanders off the beaten path only to be reigned in later at great cost to the bottom line or trust with an owner.
As I embrace the middle stage of my career, I am consistently reminded of how much the success of any given project relies upon good communication.
In the past two weeks, I led more meetings than I had in the past two months prior to that. I thrive in meetings because I’ve learned their language. I’ve learned how to their ways.
How to Improve Your Meeting Experience
Specifically, I’ve found there are four ways to significantly improve the quality of the meetings I hold and to prevent them from going off the rails.
Make an Agenda — A meeting without an agenda is like taking a cross-country expedition without a map. If there isn’t a clear reason for the meeting, it will easily fall into chaos. You don’t always need a formal list of items distributed ahead of time. But you do need to make a few notes of what will be covered so that you can keep the entire group moving in the same direction.
Be Prepared to Run the Meeting — I’ve found myself several times in my career running a meeting that I never called. It typically happens when there is a misunderstanding of leadership roles or if the person who called the meeting isn’t prepared themselves and “kicks” responsibility to you. In either case, I never go to a meeting without at least a small expectation that I’ll need to run it all. For this reason, go back to item #1—know why the meeting is happening and what is to be covered ahead of time.
Write Stellar Meeting Minutes — Having needed to refer to meeting minutes (sometimes years after the original meeting took place), I know that the quality of how a meeting is recorded can mean the difference between catastrophe and triumph. Be clear and to the point. But also be thorough. If it isn’t in the minutes, it didn’t happen.
Start on Time. End on Time. When Possible, End Early. — Respect the time of others. Begin the meeting when scheduled. If the meeting minutes are well-written, those not on time should be able to follow what was missed. There is also no rule that says a meeting has to last the full duration. If you achieve the goal of the meeting early, it was successful and you should end it there.
Remember, meetings may not be the most fun you’ll have on a creative project, but good meetings are far more likely to make the final product a successful one.
Until next week, here are links to what I’ve been working on and treasures I’ve found out in the creative wilderness.
Enjoy!
Recent Finds
Matthew Encina — One Year After I Quit my Job – Why, How, & What Now? (Video) | A year or so ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Matthew Encina on the Clubhouse app. Matthew is a fascinating creator and I highly recommend this deep dive into his solo journey of leaving his dream job for the exciting unknown. He has one of the best processes I’ve ever seen for how to evaluate life-changing decisions and the quality of his videos are second to none.
Wired — Computer Scientist Explains One Concept in 5 Levels of Difficulty (Video) | Speaking of communication, this video is a fascinating study of what communication looks like at different levels. A computer scientist, Amit Sahai, PhD, presents the concept of “zero-knowledge proofs” to five people. While that concept in and of itself is interesting, the best part of the video is HOW Amit discusses the concept across such a broad range of individuals.
Gary Vaynerchuk — When I Don’t Feel Like Doing Work (IG Reel) | Love him or hate him, one of the greatest advantages of Gary Vaynerchuk’s 10+ years of content consistency is being able to watch his transformation from Crush It to today. Even the King of Hustle knows, understands, and appreciates the value of rest in the long term. It’s a message worth reminding ourselves of every day.
Quote of the Week
“Striving to be the best is a mistake. It creates the illusion of an endpoint—and a delusion that you can only succeed by beating others. Striving to be better shifts the focus from victory to mastery. You’re competing with your past self and raising the bar for your future self.”
— Adam Grant, NYT Best-Selling Author and Organizational Psychologist
That's all for now.
Stay creative, my friends—and have a great week!
