Meetings cost millions

Make sure they’re worth it

By Edward Miller

In the newsroom of an average-size newspaper, the annual cost (measured as salary and benefits) of all meetings is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. At a metro paper, with a larger and more expensive staff, the cost is in the millions. Are the meetings worth it?

Nowhere is the lack of management training for editors more obvious than in newsroom meetings that waste time or become tedious distractions from important objectives.

The idea of calculating a meeting’s value is important. Unless you think your staff will expand, you’ll have to learn to do more with less. Meetings are a good place to begin more effective resource management. Here are three “dirty little secrets” about most newsroom meetings:

• They are poorly organized. Every meeting should have a single objective spelled out in a carefully drafted agenda. Without a clear purpose, focus is lost and little is accomplished. Look at the agenda (if there is one) for the next meeting you attend. Does it meet this test?

After every meeting, two things should happen that usually don’t:

1. Participants should evaluate the meeting. Did it reach the stated objective? Could that objective have been reached in another, less time-consuming way?

2. Minutes summarizing the results of the meeting should be distributed before the end of the day. If the objective was worth gathering for, then the results should be worth sharing promptly.

• Meetings often become bully pulpits. Too many meetings become forums for editors yearning to sound off. This does more than waste time; it detracts from what should be the focused objective of the meeting. It also intimidates those who might otherwise contribute.

Most meetings reflect newsroom politics. Look around the room at any news meeting and count how many people are there only to protect departmental turf; they usually contribute little beyond reading a list you’ve already read.

Meetings often become target practice for editors taking aim at the work of others, in the name of “evaluating the paper.” To be useful, critiques should be disciplined content analysis based on specific goals and standards. When they aren’t, they become bitching sessions that waste time and damage relationships.

• Most meetings aren’t necessary. It’s axiomatic: When in doubt about what to do, call a meeting. But meetings are only one of many tools available to share information and solve problems, the two most common objectives for meetings. Data can be passed along efficiently on e-mail and Lotus Notes. Electronic tools can be used to frame issues that ultimately will require expensive but essential face-to-face conversations. Spontaneous groups around the coffee machine or at lunch can conduct important business. Full “gatherings of the clan” should be reserved for only a few important occasions or tasks.

Changing your culture

Here are four ideas on changing your meeting culture:

• Eliminate some regular meetings. Select a meeting you think wastes time, and announce its termination. Determine what that meeting should have accomplished and select alternative ways to meet the objective. When you find that eliminating a wasteful meeting actually produces better results, your sense of exhilaration will motivate you to try it with other meetings.
• Focus on objectives. Each meeting should have one clear objective. It might be to pass along information not otherwise available, or to review progress on an important project. It might be to welcome and orient some new staffers to the team. Whatever the objective, there should be only one, and it should be clearly spelled out before the meeting.
• Facilitate the meeting. Every meeting should have someone who runs it, preferably someone other than the boss who called the meeting. The boss should quietly and judiciously monitor a meeting’s progress; her focus should be on results. The facilitator should concentrate on process; his focus must be on steering the meeting toward the stated objective. Facilitation improves a meeting’s results by reducing the boss’s disproportionate influence over the proceedings.
• Evaluate each meeting. Before you get up from the table (why are meetings always around tables?) ask two questions: 1. Did we know what we wanted to accomplish? 2. Did we accomplish it? If not, ask why not, and think about how to make the next meeting work better.

Not all newsroom meetings are as dismal as I’ve just described. If you have ideas about running good meetings, send them to me. In return, I’ll send each contributor a pair of essays with more detail about running good meetings. You can e-mail your ideas to miller@newsroomleadership.com.

Miller is an associate of the Poynter Institute and a newsroom coach. He can be reached at miller@newsroomleadership.com.