"My team meetings could benefit from some structure."

This is a common request I get from some of my clients. But focusing on structure is often a red herring.

Don't get me wrong: some structure will probably help. The problem is not structure; it's the focus on structure over substance.

If the problem is, as it often is, that meetings remain too superficial or do not result in much concrete progress, then the bottleneck is not a lack of structure, but a lack of focus on substance.

What do I mean by substance?

The best way to describe it is not to define it, but to compare two hypothetical managers, one who focuses on superficial structure, and one who focuses on substance.

• The superficial manager uses a meeting agenda that represents meeting tasks (corporate communications, progress updates, team updates, etc.). Conversely, the concrete manager uses an agenda that represents business tasks (pre-empting project delays, unlocking progress, getting a new process adopted, etc.)
• The superficial manager relays corporate messages and changes, whereas the concrete manager explains them.
• The superficial manager uses the progress updates to know the project status, whereas the concrete manager uses them to improve the project status.
• The superficial manager is content with the meeting being done, whereas the concrete manager is only content when the business gets done.

I could go on, but you get the point. What matters is not what points are on the meeting agenda but how they are discussed, whether the attitude is passive or active, superficial or concrete, process- or outcome-driven.

How to improve that? Three quick tips among many:

1. Before the meeting, take a Post-it and write on it three outcomes you want to achieve during the meeting. Make them specific. (Bad example: "Achieve alignment." Good example: "Pre-mortem how the Acme project might fail.") Keep the Post-it in front of you during the meeting and do not end it before having achieved these three outcomes.
2. During the meeting, dig deep into at least one point. Examples might include a comprehensive root cause analysis, a detailed pre-mortem, or asking a few questions to understand a topic one of your subordinates brought to the discussion, and not accepting superficial answers. You probably won't have the time to dig deep into more than one point per meeting, but you should do it for at least one.
3. After the meeting, ask yourself how it changed the performance of your team compared to a scenario in which the meeting hadn't taken place. Identify one thing you could have done differently, and add it to the post-it you'll use for the next team meeting.

Practicing the three points above will improve your team meetings significantly more than improving their structure.

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