participation (in meetings) is not the same as transparency

11 Jun 2023

something that maureen and i have noticed in some consulting work we do together is the conflation between transparency and invitations to participate in meetings. this is by no means a new pattern, but it seems to be widespread in folks we work with at the moment.

in practice it looks like:

• inviting too many people to a meeting
• having a meeting purpose that is misaligned with the participants in (or invited) to a meeting
• the phrase “we’re inviting people so we can be transparent”
• etc, etc.

the trouble is that this doesn’t work. it often leads to people attending too many meetings and not having enough focused time to do their actual work.

there are many things to do to disrupt this pattern. this is not an exhaustive list but some are:

• collect questions and ideas from a broader group of people in advance the meeting. bring those into the meeting. then create a clear and concise set of notes summarizing the meeting (and especially noting where/how the questions were answered if they were or that they weren’t if they weren’t)
• this is part of the cascading communication framework from patrick leocioni: at the end of the meeting, make sure there is a strategy to communicating the importance and impact of whatever was discussed or decided in the meeting (ex: person x will tell team y, person g will tell persons h, i, j, and k, etc.)
• record the meeting and make the recording (audio and/or video) available for those who want to watch it later

just some thoughts! don’t get caught in the trap. it’s definitely one of the bad practices on the road to burning out a team!

words / writing / post-processing
292w / 10min / 9min