The Entrepreneur's Guide to Productive Meetings
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The document discusses how to run productive meetings and manage conflicts in entrepreneurial organizations. It recommends that meetings have clear purposes and agendas. Brainstorming meetings should establish rules and frameworks for discussion. Action meetings should assign deliverables and follow ups. The document advocates that conflicts arise from differing opinions and should be encouraged and isolated to specific meetings. Conflicts should be managed by setting engagement rules, brainstorming alternatives, gathering information from all parties, and holding regular sessions to resolve issues.
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The Entrepreneur's Guide to Productive Meetings
- 1. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S JOURNEYVenture Dojo Copyright 2016 Productive Meetings
- 2. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S JOURNEYVenture Dojo Copyright 2016 What is a Meeting? How do people it wrong… • Too many discussion items • Wrong people in the meeting • Too Informational--not enough direction • Does not ask for everyone’s contribution • No benchmark to know when it should end • Too long
- 3. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S JOURNEYVenture Dojo Copyright 2016 Types of Internal Meetings • Update—benchmark progress • Brainstorming • Action Meetings
- 4. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S JOURNEYVenture Dojo Copyright 2016 Effective Meetings are PURPOSE- driven • Clear agenda: stated goal upfront • Provide an ask: what do you want people to do in the meeting • Only the information people need to be able to contribute or make a decision • Focus on decisions • If no decision can be made, decide on what additional info is needed to make it
- 5. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S JOURNEYVenture Dojo Copyright 2016 How To: Brainstorm • Have a framework / process for discussion • Outline the rules to get the most creative output from everyone • State the question you want answered
- 6. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S JOURNEYVenture Dojo Copyright 2016 How To: Conduct Action Meetings • Send out structured agenda ahead of time • Pose the question that needs to be answered • “Parking lot” tangential issues or topics • Make notes and connect them to deliverables • Assign someone to follow up on deliverables
- 7. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S JOURNEYVenture Dojo Copyright 2016 Managing Conflict.
- 8. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S JOURNEYVenture Dojo Copyright 2016 Parallax
- 9. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S JOURNEYVenture Dojo Copyright 2016 “Conflict” is vital information…avoid it at your peril.
- 10. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S JOURNEYVenture Dojo Copyright 2016 Leaders encourage healthy conflict • Conflict is GOOD • Differing opinions mean people are thinking • Groupthink is dangerous
- 11. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S JOURNEYVenture Dojo Copyright 2016 How to Manage Conflict • Set rules of engagement – don’t go personal • Get in habit of brainstorming alternatives • Set up system to gather info from everyone • Encourage but isolate conflicts to specific meetings • Set up regular “balloon popping” sessions • Agree to set up a test to determine the optimal
- 12. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S JOURNEYVenture Dojo Copyright 2016 Problem Solving. • Be vigilant: identify problems early • Call a meeting to address them • Diagnose problem—find cause
- 13. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S JOURNEYVenture Dojo Copyright 2016 Prioritization. • Prioritize “most critical” issues • Human nature: we tend to do the easiest and most enjoyable things first • Concept: Triage • Identify “most life-threatening” issues • Solve them first • Identify the bottlenecks • Solve them second • Everything else last
- 14. THE ENTREPRENEUR’S JOURNEYVenture Dojo Copyright 2016 Conflict Management: Recap •Conflict is GOOD •Differing opinions mean people are thinking •Groupthink is dangerous •How to manage conflict •Set rules of engagement – don’t go personal •Get in habit of brainstorming alternatives •Set up system to gather info from everyone •Set up regular “balloon popping” sessions •Agree to set up a test to determine the optimal option
Notes de l'éditeur
- As you develop a working relationship with your team, you will undoubtedly find that your teammates disagree on many things. This is a good thing. Working WELL with each other doesn’t mean you always agree on EVERYTHING. The strongest teams disagree on everything but they eventually find a way to come to agreement. Sometimes YOU will disagree with a teammate. Sometimes your teammates will disagree with each other. In this module, we will discuss these challenges and provide you with ways to manage the many conflicts you will encounter.
- As you develop a working relationship with your team, you will undoubtedly find that your teammates disagree on many things. This is a good thing. Working WELL with each other doesn’t mean you always agree on EVERYTHING. The strongest teams disagree on everything but they eventually find a way to come to agreement. Sometimes YOU will disagree with a teammate. Sometimes your teammates will disagree with each other. In this module, we will discuss these challenges and provide you with ways to manage the many conflicts you will encounter.
- As you develop a working relationship with your team, you will undoubtedly find that your teammates disagree on many things. This is a good thing. Working WELL with each other doesn’t mean you always agree on EVERYTHING. The strongest teams disagree on everything but they eventually find a way to come to agreement. Sometimes YOU will disagree with a teammate. Sometimes your teammates will disagree with each other. In this module, we will discuss these challenges and provide you with ways to manage the many conflicts you will encounter.
- --updating information --needing decision --Decision --No-decision: outline list of things/actions needed or information needed to make decision --asking for input or advice
- Have a framework AND a question you want answered
- --Structured agenda—pose a question that needs answered --Logistics--call in number and make sure everyone can make it --Parking Lot --Notes connected to deliverables --assign someone to follow up on deliverables
- As you develop a working relationship with your team, you will undoubtedly find that your teammates disagree on many things. This is a good thing. Working WELL with each other doesn’t mean you always agree on EVERYTHING. The strongest teams disagree on everything but they eventually find a way to come to agreement. Sometimes YOU will disagree with a teammate. Sometimes your teammates will disagree with each other. In this module, we will discuss these challenges and provide you with ways to manage the many conflicts you will encounter.
- As you develop a working relationship with your team, you will undoubtedly find that your teammates disagree on many things. This is a good thing. Working WELL with each other doesn’t mean you always agree on EVERYTHING. The strongest teams disagree on everything but they eventually find a way to come to agreement. Sometimes YOU will disagree with a teammate. Sometimes your teammates will disagree with each other. In this module, we will discuss these challenges and provide you with ways to manage the many conflicts you will encounter.
- First, let’s discuss why conflict is good. You may have been taught that disagreeing with others, especially those in positions of power, is a bad thing. In some cultures, “harmony” is the greatest virtue and children are taught to pursue harmony and avoid conflict at all costs. In those cultures, people who disagree openly are often rejected by their peer group. This is dangerous in business, especially in startups, because those who disagree often have critical insight that could prevent mistakes or unleash huge opportunities. Let’s pause for a second and talk a little about insight. We define insight as “a deep understanding of of a situation or thing.” We all have the capacity for insight because anyone who takes the time and effort to learn and think about a topic, will eventually become an expert and acquire some unique insight. But because we are all different, with different experiences and different perspectives, we will most likely have different insight for the SAME situation. This is actually very valuable for startups. Since insight unlocks opportunities, more insight is better, even if it conflicts. Additionally, conflicting insight is critical to preventing mistakes that the human brain is prone to making. It turns out, that we are not as rational or impartial as we think we are. The human brain can be heavily influenced by many things, both consciously and subconsciously. Those influences are called Cognitive Biases and they can effect what you see, what you remember and even what you believe. Scientists have proven that virtually everyone is affected by cognitive biases though there’s certainly a lot of disagreement about their origins. Our brains tend to remember the most recent events and trends, this is why you start seeing a lot of Tesla cars on the road after you see a Tesla commercial. Your brain’s tendency to favor recent things is called Recency bias. Our brains also have the tendency to see things that confirm our world view while ignoring information that challenge it. This is called confirmation bias, a dangerous thing for entrepreneurs. Because entrepreneurs tend to be overly optimistic about their products, they seek out only the people who will confirm their world view and ignore signs that their products are broken. Too often, entrepreneurs will hire only people who agree with them, who confirm their opinion that customers will love their products. This is why you must encourage your teammates to openly share their opinions when they disagree. When you’re trying to create something new, you actually don’t know who has the right answer. Having lots of different ideas gives you lots of options for action. Besides, if only one person is allowed to have an opinion, why do you have a team anyway? Your team is a rich resource of creativity, leverage everyone’s minds when you need to solve a big problem. When everyone starts to think alike or lets one person do all the thinking, it’s called Groupthink. Groupthink appears a lot in government and in the military which is why most intelligence organizations have special procedures to make sure it doesn’t happen. Even in very structured places like the army, people actively encourage others to disagree openly during strategy meetings. You will find that your team will also be prone to Groupthink. Resist it. Embrace conflict.
- But disagreement can lead to arguments and hurt feelings so you must also be careful. You want to encourage disagreement without disrupting your team dynamic. So here are some pointers. First, set explicit rules of engagement. Everyone should be reminded that different opinions matter and that arguments should never go personal. Discourage shouting or judging other people’s ideas. Get in the habit of brainstorming alternatives to every idea—do not pursue ideas without discussing your other options. In the discussion, you may find more promising solutions. Set up a system to gather information from EVERYONE. Some people are very vocal and their ideas tend to get the most attention because they are the loudest or the most persistent. However, the quietest people tend to have the most insight because they spend more time listening and thinking than speaking. So you will need to create a way to get the quietest team members to contribute. When I try to figure out if an idea will work, I ask all my team members to email me 3 reasons it will work and 3 reasons it won’t. This way, everyone shares their thoughts without judgment from others. I also encourage conflict in specific isolated periods so that the team will not be arguing for the entire day. I call these “balloon popping” sessions where I pose an idea—the balloon-- and ask everyone to take 3 minutes to try to pop it with as many darts as possible. Write them on a whiteboard without making any judgments. Record all of their opinions. It’s better that your team finds all of the problems before you invest time and money executing on something that won’t work. It’s one of the most effective ways to identify blindspots in your thinking. While some disagreements can be resolved through discussion, many require a real world test. If it’s a disagreement about a feature, you may need to test your idea with customers. If it’s a disagreement about marketing, you may need to do market tests. In any event, tests provide an objective way to determine which idea has the most promise.
- Resolve conflicts immediately after they arise. Conflicts tend to be more painful when you avoid addressing the issue early. If the issue is big enough, I usually call an emergency meeting to diagnose the problem and identify multiple ways to solve it.
- As your startup develops you will encounter many more problems than you can resolve in a day. So you will need to prioritize the most critical issues. As humans, we tend to be drawn to the easiest and most enjoyable things. Resist the urge to prioritize the easy over the hard. Focus on what is on your critical path—what is the most important thing right now. Use the concept of Triage, a concept that we borrow from emergency medicine. Identify the most “life threatening issues” – the things that endanger the existence of your company or prevents you from getting to the next stage. If your target audience can’t understand what your product does without actually seeing a demo, then create a low-cost, prototype. If your most important engineer wants to leave for another company, focus on keeping him or her in the company. Whatever the critical issue, address it first and try to make sure the problem doesn’t reoccur. Identify and anticipate bottlenecks. You will find that some things can be done in parallel. But some things must be done in serial. Those things that must be done in serial are bottlenecks because until they are done, you will not be able to advance. So after you’ve addressed your life threatening issues, resolve your bottlenecks. Then then you can address everything else. So to repeat: First, address your life threatening issues, then your bottlenecks, then everything else.
- Since conflicts will be the most exhausting and challenging thing your team will need to deal with, let’s recap. Conflict is good. Everyone should embrace conflict as a tool in solving problems. If you don’t let everyone share their differing opinions, you are not leveraging all of your assets—everyone should be expected to think independently and share their insights. Group think is dangerous—don’t let on one opinion win without exploring alternatives. The best way to leverage conflict is to set rules of engagement to respect everyone’s opinions. Don’t let your team members attack each other’s intelligence. You don’t need to go personal—encourage positive disagreement. Get in the habit of brainstorming alternatives—encourage alternative ideas. Set up a system to gather information and opinions from everyone. Set up regular, isolated meetings to balloon pop ideas so that you can identify all the potential issues. And agree on ways to test whether an idea is the right now. I know lots of teams that test all of their ideas with their customers before embarking on any development.