Earlier I shared my view on how our current digital economy has made it easy to ask for experiences to be rated (Uber, Airbnb, Netflix). But this trend seems to be lacking in the workspace. Hierarchial and peer relations prevent us from sharing feedback, and most of us admit to having little idea what makes for a good meeting.
So I ended my previous post with the three key drivers of how Rate My Meeting is looking to improve that.
Help open up discussions about meeting performance
Teach about what makes for effective meetings
Keep track of meeting performance over time
Let’s dive in. Open up discussions
Most of us spend more time with our colleagues than with our families and friends. As colleagues, we experience achievements and frustrations together. We lunch together, have Friday night drinks together and sit through hours of meetings. You might even travel together or invite colleagues to your house, wedding or baby shower. These same people might also be the ones you compete with for that better position or may have a say in your annual performance review (read: bonus).
So it’s not easy to be brutally honest with each other. There can be a lot at stake.
In your current role, do you feel comfortable telling someone that the meeting they just ran felt like a waste of your time? That you felt you did not belong? Or that the objective was not clear? 72% of the respondents we spoke to said no. They rather sit through a meeting than to speak their minds.
Now interesting enough, most people will tell you they do value participant feedback.
This is the first key driver where Rate My Meeting helps. If people value feedback, but personal or hierarchical relations prevent us from doing so. To help each other improve, we need a way to anonymously share feedback. Teach what good meetings look like
Even if you went to business school, chances are, you never had subject called ‘Meetings 101’. At least I didn’t, nor did anyone I know.
It is like not learning about personal finances, doing taxes or what makes proper nutrition in high school.
A lot of people never learn what a good meeting consists of. It is the reason for so many articles and tools out there (see this blog article). I learned about running meetings and facilitating workshops in my years as a consultant, but the majority of the workforce is trained on improving hard skills (online marketing, controlling, negotiations), not soft skills.
Someone that is aware of this, can start an online course, adopt one of the many tools out there, or best case go to a company-provided two-day training. But even then, to tailor insights to your meetings specifically will remain challenging.
This then becomes the second key driver where Rate My Meeting helps. If you can pinpoint the pains of your meetings based on participant feedback, you can better focus on how to improve. Feedback needs to direct you to tools and methods to use, not the other way around. Track performance
Once your participants help you identify the primary pains of your meetings, you will want to see whether the things you try really do result in more effective meetings.
Just like in school, a single rating does not tell much. And it does not motivate either. Tracking progress over time allows you to see results. It motivates you to keep going, gives you the data to show progress and allows you to move on and try new things. You increase your visibility among colleagues, show them you respect their opinions and reduce your own frustration of ineffective meetings.
This is the final key driver Rate My Meeting focuses on. To improve your meetings you need to record the results of your efforts over time. It will allow you to see correlations and keep you focused over time.
Now, if you haven’t done so already, try Rate My Meeting to see how it addresses all of the above. It’s free to get started! If it does not help, or if you feel something is missing: reach out. We are happy to hear your thoughts.