10/26/2010 Make Meetings Work: Fight the PowerP…

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Make Meetings Work: Fight the PowerPoint

11:13 AM Monday October 25, 2010
by Robert C. Pozen and Justin Fox | Comments (4)

PowerPoint overload! Hundred-twenty-minute snoozefests!

Inconclusive conclusions! We all k now how meetings can go
wrong. In this fifth in a series of posts on personal
productivity, Bob Pozen, chairman emeritus of MFS
Email
Investment Management and senior lecturer at Harvard
Business School, tells HBR's Justin Fox how to structure Tw eet This
meetings that don't waste anybody's time.
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JF: What are your rules for meetings? Share on LinkedIn

Print RECENTLY FROM THE CONVERSATION

First, almost every meeting can be completed in one hour or Networking Lessons from the Hollywood A-
at most 90 minutes. At 90 minutes, people turn off — they get List OCT 25

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Second, you should have meeting materials delivered the day by William
Sahlman
before or the night before by email. All materials should have a
$8.95
one-page executive summary, and the assumption should be Buy it now »
that everyone has read at least the summary before the
meeting starts.

1. The Eight-Word Mission Statement

How to Write a
There are so many meetings at which the presenters just slog
Great Business
through 20 or 30 PowerPoint slides. But they've already sent Plan 2. What Not to Spend Your Time On
by William
the material in advance to the participants so this is a terrible 3. How Much Are You Worth?
Sahlman
waste of time. In my view, the presenter should give a five or $6.95
Buy it now » 4. How Will You Measure Your Life?
10 minute introduction to set the stage and tee up the key
questions, and leave the rest of the time for discussion and 5. Shape Perceptions of Your Work, Early and
formulation of an action plan. Often
Citibank's e-
Business 6. Six Keys to Being Excellent at Anything
Strategy for
JF: If somebody comes with a PowerPoint presentation,
Global
7. Why Is it So Hard to Be Kind?
do you just say: "Look, you already gave me those Corporate
Banking
slides, so I don't want to see these PowerPoints?" 8. The Four Capacities Every Great Leader
by Ali
Farhoomand, Needs (And Very Few Have)
Shamza Khan,
Usually, I let them go on for a little while to see if this is just Marissa 9. Make Meetings Work: Fight the PowerPoint

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10/26/2010 Make Meetings Work: Fight the PowerP…
Marissa 9. Make Meetings Work: Fight the PowerPoint
an introduction. But if they start to drone on, I would say, McCauley, et al.
$6.95 10. The Michelle Obama Effect
"Look, you've already given us this material, which we've all
Buy it now »
read. And there's some really excellent analysis in this
material. So let's see if you can focus us on the key points we
need to discuss and decide upon."

JF: What's your strategy in structuring a meeting?

There are two typical styles for leading meetings, both of which are problematic. One is the very
open leader who says, "OK, let's have everyone's ideas about what we should do." But that leader
has not given any structure to the conversation, so the participants can waste a lot of time. The
other sort of leader is authoritarian. He or she says: "This is my view about where this project should
head. And here are the steps I believe we need to take." Then the participants are likely to be afraid
to say that this whole plan makes no sense.

I take a third approach, which could be called the rebuttable presumption. It is designed to focus the
discussion and encourage debate. I might say, "Here is the area where we really need to do
something. But it is a difficult area and there are several ways to address the problems. Now this is STAY CONNECTED TO HBR

my tentative view of the path we should take, but I could be wrong. I want you to feel free to disagree
and offer alternatives." And then you have to be willing actually to discard or modify your plan if
someone comes up with a better one.
Facebook Tw itter RSS iPhone

If someone comes up with a truly new idea in a meeting, I embrace it enthusiastically. How many
times do you hear a totally innovative idea? If you embrace new ideas, you will attract creative
New sletters LinkedIn YouTube Google
people to work for you because they see that you really value innovative contributions.

JF: Do you have a particular way of closing meetings?

At the end of a meeting, I will always ask, "Where are we going to go from here? What are the to-
do's and who's going to do them and when will they be delivered?" I want the meeting participants to
agree on a set of deliverables and to set their own timetable. Then they will have an ownership
interest in the follow up, rather than just going along with my directions. And they often select a
more aggressive timetable than I would have the nerve to suggest.

The previous posts in this series were on daily routine, speed reading, speed writing, and
prioritization.

More on: Decision making, Managing people, Presentations

Join the Discussion | More by This Author | Email/Share

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Marsh 1 day ago

You have some interesting points, but the first problem I have with this is that there are so many different
types of meetings with different purposes and objectives, it is hard to make such general statements like
meetings should not take more than an hour or 90 minutes at most. If the meeting is more than an hour,
I'd suggest a 10 minute break if you are loosing people’s interest. Or maybe try more engaging visual
support materials to keep people’s interest high.

Definitely a good idea to have some meeting rules and to be sure everyone is aware of them. But different
meetings require different rules.

If everyone would abide by the send your meeting materials (PowerPoint slides included) a day in advance
that would be wonderful. If people would then actually take the time to review them in advance that would
be even better. From my view of the world of Meetings and PowerPoint, I'd be happy if more people finished
their slides a day in advance rather than the more typical an hour before the meeting or lately - minutes
before the meeting.

To say "Look, you already gave me those slides, so I don't want to see these PowerPoints?" might be a
good sign that they are not really effective PowerPoint slides, that are best presented live - for visuals that
support the meeting communication. If the PowerPoint slides play the role you are suggesting - just a
meeting pre-read, they- probably should have just been a Microsoft Word document and not PowerPoint.

As a meeting organizer/leader, you should not allow BAD PowerPoint to rule the meeting and insist on
high quality, effective visual support materials if you want a successful meeting. I say don’t “Fight the
PowerPoint”, but make them better and use them to be the powerful communication tool they can be if
used properly.

3 people liked this.

Pjdempsey 5 hours ago

excellent suggestions. I prefer engaging in discussion much more than being held captive by the power
point presentations.

Sheikh Anwar 13 hours ago

I feel that the above referred meeting structure works where there is proper empowerment.In a closed
culture, the authoritarian giving his point of view at the outset, though inviting criticism and candid opinion,
might not work as the cultures inihibits open discussion and people are afraid of aftermath.

A one page summary of the materials is very a good idea as people oftently deon't tend to read lengthy pre-
meeting materials.

mypaisa 1 day ago

@Bob Pozen - great advice. Any tweaks with regard to conference calls?

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