Important meetings, where decisions are made and strategies set, need to be primed for success. They are simply too critical to have people show up and begin thinking of the issues, problems, and opportunities under discussion for the first time.
In the ideal design, the meeting starts the moment the invitation goes out and the calendar is set. This is when the pregame work begins.
Prework is never busy work. It should be designed to get the juices and ideas flowing. Because of this preface, when people arrive at the meeting, they are ready to discuss and can dive right into the issues. This makes for powerful meetings.
Asking team members to read, respond, summarize, or clarify creates a common foundation to make the most of the time when people are in the same room to discuss the issues. Great prework design requires team members to engage, experience, collaborate, and digest all before the meeting.
The team leader or facilitator does more than just encourage some pre-thought. They ask team members to dig in and commit themselves to the data, information, or positions central to the discussion.
Too many teams and leaders have tried such a process and then abandoned it because team members failed to do the required work prior to the meeting. Leaders detest herding people who resist and say they are too busy, so they often hit the eject button and give up on what they know would be a highly additive exercise. The funny thing is that people are never too busy to engage prior to the meeting if they will be called out for arriving unprepared.
On better teams, the prework is the entry ticket to attend the meeting, no matter who you are or what status you hold on the team. If you don’t submit the prework assignment, there is simply no reason to show up. Team members get on board quickly when this is the case, and rarely do they resent it. Once they experience how much more productive the meeting is because of the prework, the idea sells itself.
Priming team members prior to the meeting adds energy, focus, and substance to the eventual discussion. Good leaders make it a habit to design valuable prework and insist that team members come prepared for the discussion. True meeting success occurs when preparation meets discussion. It’s time to make the best use of meeting time.
Good morning,
This is a tough one.
We all want our people to do their due diligence (in this case it's the homework).
With CliffsNotes, Blinkist, and whoever else exists in this domain; it can be difficult to determine who did not read the material and/or do the work. This doesn't even touch on AI. I know there's going to have to be compromise. I do like how you prefer to handle it. Unfortunately, excluding individuals from the meeting, can also be exactly what they want. Limbo is a tough place to be. I suspect we are left with continued efforts at team involvement. Perhaps examples of showing you care, putting in the work, and owning our domain/s will help get that coveted buy-in. Either way there do have to be consequences for our actions. I like a documented "pre-work" task/sample (as long as they are on the clock). That shows professionalism.
Thanks for the briefing and your time.
This is a hard one. I'm a retired teacher, and I can attest to the importance of being prepared for important meetings, like state testing prep, active shooter training, and test score data analysis to move our students forward. All of these topics required assigned readings or research. The meetings WERE efficient and effective. So much so, that we were assigned pre-workout for EVERY Wednesday meeting on top of our work for our students and families. It became busy work and we all set our priorities and didn't do the assigned work. Admin even had us turn in something or sign something, but we still didn't do it. While this is a good strategy, the leaders need to assess workload purpose.