Ndi mu nama; are our meetings overrated?

There is a joke going round that January is so tough on people financially (with all the obligations, right after Christmas and related festivities) that if someone calls you for a wedding committee meeting, it is considered terrorism! Let me say that I have nothing against meetings, business, social or otherwise. It is just that as the Swahili say, ‘chura hupenda maji ila si ya moto’ (a frog likes water, but not hot water). It seems like we have a lot of meetings in Rwanda. It is not unusual to be told or texted ‘ndi mu nama’ (I’m in a meeting) when you call a typical Rwandan. We have work meetings, wedding committee meetings, church meetings, family meetings and the rest. I recall someone once commenting- at a meeting of course I was in- that we have more meetings than the days of the calendar. After that he excused himself from our meeting which was barely midway to attend another…it was a Sunday. The point was demonstrated and well made. It is good to have meetings; this way we can share ideas and work together and thus the seemingly numerous meetings. However, in the face of an influx of meetings with little productivity, we need, in 2016, to interrogate the purpose, necessity and indeed the effectiveness of the meetings as we conduct them today. Are they overrated? Can we conduct them better? Meetings are meant to make a team more effective, updated and coordinated while keeping track of its performance and objectives. The unanimity that the meetings generate is healthy to team spirit and teamwork. However, the way we conduct meetings needs an ‘extreme makeover’. We need to move from situations where we always have a follow up meeting because the actions that were agreed upon in the previous ones have not been done totally, properly and in the expected time span. Hence the need to adopt a more businesslike approach. Meetings should be well managed- in planning, execution and control. Before they are undertaken, meetings should be planned carefully to establish their purpose and effectiveness. Alternative ways of achieving the same objectives should be considered. Sometimes meetings are held over issues that can be dealt with through email, phone or otherwise. We need to understand the specific purpose(s) of meetings before we call them. They should fit into the big picture of our objectives. Planning of meeting is not our greatest weakness though; it is in the execution that our Achilles’ heel is revealed. The first test of your effectiveness at meetings is in time keeping and time management; this is especially so if the meetings are voluntary, where your freewill is strongly at play. One of life’s mysteries seems to be the fact that people who come late for meetings are always the ones who will be in a rush to get out of them. Are you one of them? Our meetings and conferences, especially the social and private sector ones, rarely begin and end in scheduled time. Latecomers unapologetically disrupt the ongoing meetings with greetings and ‘catching up’ episodes with buddies and almost always never apologise for late coming. Then there is the agenda. Amendments to the agenda should be made earlier. It is best to send the agenda over mail prior to the meetings so that they are streamlined to the main purpose of the meeting. The normal practice that we have, that amends and adds the other agenda items during the meeting, while democratic, ends up watering down the main agenda as well as reducing the capacity of the facilitator to control the meeting whilst making the meeting long and largely ineffective. Control of meetings is crucial. Rotary International has a good format for keeping its meetings short sharp and effective that we could all borrow. There is a meeting controller called the sergeant-a- arms. His job is to manage and motivate the participants. This enables the head of the meeting to effectively preside over the same. Are your meetings well planned, executed and controlled? Are they necessary at all? This is the issue to consider this year, if you want to have an effective 2016. Happy New Year! The writer is a management consultant and trainer specializing in entrepreneurship and project management.

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Ndi mu nama; are our meetings overrated?