Creative Cringe: Meeting Edition

Image courtesy of @alicegrace via Unsplash.

We all loathe meetings, and we’ve all had cringe-inducing moments because of them.

You’ve probably come into contact with them every day — some of them you may not even notice anymore,  and others might make your blood boil every time.

In this article, I’ll break down five cringe-inducing things that drive me crazy about meetings.

But, of course, here at NSC, we’re all about the positive vibes. 

So I’ll also share some handy tips on how you can navigate them, to keep your sanity intact in future meetings.

Before we dive in, let's recap what I mean by ‘cringe’ the dictionary definition is: 
“bend one's head and body in fear or apprehension or in a servile manner.”

For me, the "bend in my head" is the shudder I feel when I see or hear a creative cringe in day-to-day life. 

Those little things that make you grind your teeth, twitch or pull that awkward I-don't-really-agree-with-you smile™.

It always makes me think of one of my favourite comedy shows, Blackadder. 

In the fourth season, the main character, Captain Blackadder (played by the legendary comedian and actor, Rowan Atkinson), torments another soldier, Captain Darling (played by another acting legend Tim McInnerny).

Captain Blackadder repeatedly calls his fellow soldier "Darling" throughout the season – making him dramatically wince and twitch, almost as if he’s in pain.

Here’s a clip – in the first 30 seconds, you’ll see what I mean:

This is what pops into my head when I think about these 5 things.

I like to believe that I can hide my cringe-face better than Captain Darling can. 

But I’ll let my friends and peers be the judge of that. *Gulp*

With Captain Darling's cringe-face fresh in our minds, let's dive in...

Image courtesy of @punttim via Unsplash.

1. *Bing-Bing* A Meeting? *Click-Click*... No agenda!

We’ve all been in this situation…

Sat in the meeting room, as people are settling down into their seats, chatting about the last meeting and who got booted off The Great British Bake Off the night before.

Then a voice cuts through the noise: "What's this meeting about then?"

Never a good sign.

How can anyone be prepared for a meeting if you don't know what it's about, or what the end goal is?

You can't!

A meeting without an agenda is like a body without a skeleton — floppy.

Without direction and structure, it can quickly descend into chaos as everyone tries to implement their own agenda based on the small amount of information to hand. 

All you have to go on is a vague meeting title like 'weekly catch up' or 'touch base on project X'.

Anyone who books a meeting has a desired outcome of that meeting, whether they realise it or not.

It can simply be an answer to a question (that can't be answered via email) or a more complex discussion about the direction of a project.


How do we avoid this?
Write an agenda!

It doesn't have to be an essay, just a couple of bullet points — a sentence in each, maximum. 

A good agenda is the skeleton of a meeting, it's not the flesh and blood.

It's all about providing a framework to hang your meeting on.

It frames the meeting and directs everyone's focus toward a shared desired outcome.

This dramatically reduces the chances of your meeting being derailed by a random comment or idea.

Sharing the framework and the end goal of your meetings allows everyone to gather their thoughts and prepare additional material to share to help achieve a common goal.

Doing this before a meeting gives everyone a boost of confidence, knowing that they will not be caught off-guard by a surprise question that they don’t know the answer too.

Image courtesy of @eseamau via Unsplash.

2. Are you ‘touching base’ to ‘think outside of the box’, that’s a ‘win-win’ scenario

No one likes business jargon, it’s not big and it’s not clever.

Speak in a simple and effective language in meetings.

As Albert Einstein once said
“If you can't explain it to a six-year-old, you don't understand it yourself."

Don't take the chance of alienating someone in your meeting by using business acronyms or buzz words.

If people don't feel included they will begin to tune out from your meeting and start wondering what they might be having for dinner that night.

Remember, different companies have different languages and vocabularies — some definitions are the same, others aren’t. 

You’re already juggling so many moving pieces in a meeting to allow you language and communication to add to this.

How do we avoid this?
Speak in simple terms — although this is easier said than done.

The ability to communicate to others in a clear, concise and compelling way is an art form.

It takes time to develop the necessary skills and years of application to master it.

Communication in meetings is not only about your output, but also your input — what you hear and see are vital to your ability to read the room.

Reading the room allows to adapt your output communication to compliment or raise the energy level in the room.

This can sometimes make all the difference in whether the outcome is positive or negative.

Image courtesy of @eddrobertson via Unsplash.

3. You all brought your laptop and a phone to a meeting… Seriously?

We've all been there — it’s a big meeting, and everyone files into the room, sits down, opens their laptop, and pops their phone on the table next to it.

As the meeting starts, they begin frantically typing away on the laptop, taking breaks to check their phone— all while the meeting carries on around them.

People are not machines: no-one can actually multitask.

If you are in a meeting, be in the meeting.

No-one can be fully invested in a meeting if they are typing an email or waiting for a phone call.

Two exceptions to this: 
One: The person presenting needs a screen to share ideas with the group.
Two: Someone at the meeting needs to take notes.

How do we avoid this?
Often people bring something they can distract themselves with a meeting.

This is probably because on some level, they believe the meeting doesn't deserve their full attention, it's not a high priority.

In order to change this, you need to ensure all your meeting attendees know the context of the meeting, and what they need to bring to the meeting — both in ideas and physical things like notebooks.

This can easily be achieved through your agenda and can be incorporated into your meeting goals.

At a higher level in a business, you can put in place some etiquette or rules from meetings which could include: rules about timekeeping, amount of electronics and other common meeting cringes and irritations.

Image courtesy of @paulamayphotography via Unsplash.

4. What’s next?... I dunno

You're knee-deep in the meeting, talking through ideas and sticking points.

It seems everything is going great.

Then it happens…
Someone around the table says:
"So, what are we doing now?", or
“What are we talking about again?”, or even better
“Can we talk about [insert completely random topic here]?”.

Iceberg, dead ahead!

You can seem to be having the best meeting in the world, but it can leave everyone with a sour taste if this is one of the last sentences in your meeting.

Sometimes meetings can feel like you are trying to herd cats.

No matter how hard you stick to the agenda, there will always be stray cats — people who start off on a tangent or unrelated point.

It's not anyone's fault, it's a natural part of group conversation and discussion.

How do we avoid this?
Develop your meeting facilitation skills. 

A key principle of meeting facilitation is the embrace and pivot technique.

This technique allows you to embrace rogue comments and tangential topics, pivot by acknowledging these points, shelving it for another time and gently redirecting back to the agenda.

A good way to develop these skills is to analyse your meetings.

After each one, take some time to run over the events and try to figure out where things went astray.

Ask yourself:
Did you achieve your goals?
How did the meeting stray?
What can you change for next time?

Answering questions like these will allow you to develop important meeting facilitation skills helping you, and everyone in your meetings to not only be more efficient, but more effective.

Image courtesy of @alvaroreyes via Unsplash.

5. Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock

How many times have you sat down for a meeting only to find out other attendees are running late, not coming or have to cut the meeting short due to other commitments?

I already know your answer: 
All the time!

You can prepare the best assets for a meeting possible, but if no one shows up, what's the point?

Often not showing up at all is better than being late — at least you don't have to stop mid-way through to recap for the person who was late.

This is probably the most common cringe for meetings: that awkward shuffle people do to join a meeting they are late.

You can see in their eyes the frantic panic of "what is going on?", as they try to piece it all together.

Equally as cringe-worthy is the meeting attendee who tries to tack on a topic at the end of a meeting which they feel needs to be discussed, so the meeting crawls slowly on without the framework of an agenda, towards an unknown and messy end.

Even if these new topics are important, the meeting has ended — everyone's minds are focused on getting back to work or the next steps from the meeting.

Starting a new topic breaks that focus, which means the new topic won't get the focus it deserves.

Possibly the worst cringe is when a meeting can't start on time because key decision-makers are late or MIA — for the obvious reason that everyone knows that no matter how positive the meeting is without them, no real, official decisions will be made as an outcome, which sucks!

How do we avoid this?
Not much — life happens.

We can’t control other people's time but we can control how we use our own.

So don’t wait for late attendees!

Start without them, and when they deign to join, recap in just a couple of sentences, and move on. 

If you’re waiting around for people, the lateness will act as a domino effect, passed onto everything else that follows. 

Ensure meetings stick to their allotted time!

This should be the responsibility of the meetings lead or facilitator, and you can help this by breaking down the agenda with time slots for each part.

Add a buffer at the end of your meeting to allow for some flexibility too.

Plus everyone loves it when a meeting finishes earlier than expected!

Image courtesy of @dylandgillis via Unsplash.

6. Make your meetings meaningful

Meetings have a bad reputation in the corporate world, but they do serve a critical function — whether you believe it or not.

If they are lead correctly, they are explosions of focused group thought, innovation, and, believe it or not, fun.

All of our meeting cringes come from the same place: lack of structure and the management of that structure.

Without proper structure, meeting attendees have nothing to guide them, no goals to reach, or responsibilities of their behaviour — before, during and after.

Meetings have lost their meaning.

This meaninglessness is the rot at the centre of our working life, and it's time to cut it out.

Here are some tips for getting removing the rot:

• Put in place a list of ground rules for conducting meetings in your business, outlining what is expected of attendees and meetings themselves.

• Provide training and help for improving the facilitation skills of your team, including all stages of the meeting process: before, during and after. Empower everyone with the skills and tools to explore ways to improve their own ways of working.

• Ensure every meeting ends with a round-up, checking alignment on attendees thoughts and feelings. Ensure a clear direction is set using SMART goals.

• If all else fails, try bribery. Everyone loves coming to a meeting that has snacks and refreshments — starting off on a good vibe like this can help set a generally positive vibe for the rest of the meeting. Doughnuts are always good.

Those are my top five creative cringe points on meetings and how to avoid them!

This is the second edition in this ongoing series of articles on Creative Cringes, the goal is for this to become NSC’s very own agony aunt column. 

Check out the editions in the Creative Cringe series here.

So please leave your own meeting creative cringes in the comments below, and we’ll see if we can come up with a solution for you.

Or share your stories of how you have overcome your personal cringe-points.
Reach out to us by using the #CreativeCringe on Instagram.

You’re more than welcome to ask for advice in the comments below – we’re all about supporting the creative community here at NSC, and will do our best to answer any questions or give out advice.