It's Tuesday afternoon, and I receive a message from one of my very close friends: "I have feedback and comments about your article. Let me know if you want to talk." I knew instantly that he was not happy after spending 2 minutes reading it, so we jumped on a call.

That very morning, I had posted this article. He was downright upset and said, "What the hell, are you also into clickbaiting?" I calmly listened to his feedback, and for the next 10 minutes, I explained the purpose of the article and why I presented it that way on LinkedIn. He understood my meaning, but he had a point. I hadn't connected the dots for the reader, explaining how the process is linked to the meeting situation.

Since I want to come across with practical content, I am going to try here to establish a more tangible connection between processes and meetings. But before that...

Have you ever been in a meeting creep before?

I sometimes earn a living from back-to-back meetings. It is my job.

In my experience, I've encountered 2 extremes. One in which interactions between people are disregarded, if not discouraged. The other is where teams have too many meetings. The focus of this article is the latter, mainly because of the issue of meetings and their usefulness.

I've felt the burden of being in meetings where I was useless. Meetings with 10 people, of which only 2 or 3 were relevant to the topic discussed. You can approach this kind of situation with simple fixes, e.g., fostering a healthy meeting culture. Just put in place some policies, like:

• Do not attend a meeting where there is no information provided ahead of time.
• Do not attend a meeting where you do not understand how you can contribute.
• Reserve the right to leave the meeting after the introduction if you realize that you do not bring any value.
• Document, don't overdocument, but also avoid the absence of it (we're just talking, right?).
• Use a speaking stick.
• Implement timed speaking slots.

Name it, there is a plethora of tools that you can employ to help meetings become more meaningful and valuable.

Of course, the above will surely help, yet it will not address a more subtle issue. That is, simply put in one word, anxiety. There are 2 ways through which that can manifest:

1. FOMO - fear of missing out
2. Decision Paralysis Syndrome

FOMO

People tend to participate in many meetings out of fear that decisions that might affect them are made without their input. So they want to ensure that this is not happening. They end up in meeting after meeting where they probably will have little to no contribution. This is one way how meeting creep comes to life.

Decision Paralysis Syndrome

I have to create a meeting where decisions are to be made. The real challenge is that I do not feel empowered to make the decision ultimately, especially in case there is no agreement. So, I invite a bunch of people, who may be remotely responsible, together with me, to make that particular decision. Ultimately, what I try to avoid, perhaps, is being solely blamed for a failed decision.

Fear and how to tame it

As you can see, fear is the main driver for creating this behavior. When an agreement can't be established, you end up with: "We need a follow-up to discuss this."

I've mentioned this a couple of times, that a process is there to tame the anxieties of people, but also to create space. When you find yourself in any of the situations above, this is not just a meeting issue. I mean, it is, but not entirely. It is rather a systemic issue, and you need to address it accordingly.

That being said, I am going to propose a possible solution, and the best example comes from team retrospectives.

Whenever I facilitate such a meeting, I structure it in the following way:

1. Arriving
2. Grounding
3. Explore
4. Grounding
5. Closure

How does that look in real life?

Arriving

In this stage, I would try 5 deep breaths. This takes 30 seconds to 1 minute and helps the people to arrive mentally at the meeting. I encourage you to do it for all your meetings that are 1 hour or longer. You can have other tools you can use. I would love to hear them, so please share.

Grounding

The next step in the retrospectives is getting in touch with ourselves. What I do is ask people to share how they feel. The techniques I used here are the feel rollercoaster and the simple yet effective check-in. This will give everyone a glimpse of the room temperature. This should not take you more than 5 - 7 minutes.

If this part of the meeting becomes too heavy, you will want to add an additional step for a Mindset Shift. I do that with an energizer; this helps the people to reset.

Explore

This is where the work actually happens. For that, I use a whiteboard, physical or otherwise, to capture what is discussed and expand or constrict. There are many techniques out there to support you with that. By the way, there are retrospective tools that can be used in other meetings as well. Understanding the purpose of the meeting is crucial.

Grounding

Defining the action items to be taken out of the meeting. How, when, and by whom.

Closure

We hug. I am kidding. No, I am not, sometimes we hug at the end of the meeting. I like asking people 2-3 ending questions:

• How much could they contribute?
• How valuable did they find the meeting?

This can be measured on a scale from 1-4 (very important).

Whether we like it or not, we all need closure. And for each meeting, you need to do that, as the meeting is over. There is no continuation, just another new meeting.

How can this help?

As you can see, the above meeting structure is designed as a journey based on a process, which means it is repetitive. You know upfront that you'll be spending 5-7 minutes doing "nothing," and this, for sure, will make some people think twice. It is predictable; you know what to expect, and this will settle, hopefully, your mind. The exploration topic needs to be clear to everyone. For the meeting owner, this makes them prepare better; winging it will not do.

In the previous article, I was talking about balance. If you've been in a retro, I believe you can say without a doubt that the amount of documentation generated is about right. Not too much, not too little, just sufficient to provide the grounds for future exploration. In the end, this might bring some fun to the meetings if the content is too serious.

So, yes, I talk about processes, as I believe we do not give them the credit they deserve. Processes are very helpful tools that can put our minds at rest.

What do you think?