Productivity in meetings

A while ago, I stumbled across an article on my Twitterfeed called "7 reasons people hate being in meetings with you" in PR Daily. While I was at first offended by the title, it secured my attention and I clicked on the bitly link to open it. I'll cut to the chase; here are the 7 reasons:

1. You have no agenda.
2. You talk at them, not with them. 
3. You barrage them with data.
4. You're overly familiar. 
5. You look at your phone, not at them.
6. You talk over people.
7. You talk just to show you have value, even when you don't. 

Pretty comprehensive list, huh? Although this advice all sounds pretty obvious, it resonates with me very well. As a former intern at a company with a lot of meetings, Mojo TA who has 3 meetings/week and an involved student, I've experienced those and a few more. Here are some more awkward happenings that take away from overall productivity. 

Starting too immediately. 

Even though there is usually a meeting agenda, an uncomfortable situation can arise if you get to the details too quickly. If the meeting begins with the cold, hard dissemination of information immediately after sitting down, it is never effective. Take a very brief amount of time (2-3 minutes) to establish rapport between the group before getting down to business; it will make a difference. Whether it's the weather or current events, chat about something.

Make introductions when necessary
If you're in a group where everyone doesn't know everyone else or credibility needs to be established, don't be afraid to wrap around and review names or titles. It helps when answering questions later. 

Too personal too soon

The author's point on familiarity addresses this, saying "Too personal- working with people you know and people you don't know in the same room. Don't cut the boundaries and be too familiar." This is especially difficult when working with a group where you are already acquainted with some people and not at all acquainted with other team members.

Consider this situation. You're in a large group project and your roommate happens to be in the same group. At a break in time, you guys talk about everything that happened at dinner last night. The rest of the group, despite or not if they care, still has to listen and feels closer to you than ever expected. Be careful about personal talk if you want to get things done. 

Interrupting people
You'd think everyone has learned this by now, but that is definitely not the case. Even if you have something to say, watch the body language to assure that the person speaking appears to finish their thoughts before being the interrupter. 

Adding value

I'm trying out the whole speak when spoken to thing this semester, and so far it's going decently well. You'll appear more credible if you contribute when you have a strong, developed point - instead of speaking to agree and attempt to make yourself credible.

Teamwork

As reflect on my college experience and lessons learned, I can't help but think of a group of people who really defined my last undergrad semester of college.

Team Maven after presentations this April

A significant part of my last spring semester in 2012 (about 200 hours) was spent working on my capstone project, a campaign for Mojo Ad. Mojo is the Missouri School of Journalism's student-run advertising agency, where we work to create three full-service campaigns for a national client. While my team worked on T.G.I. Friday's, here are some things I learned from the experience. 

1. Importance of relationships

Building a relationship with each team member on an individual level was vital to operating in the group. Whether it was chatting with them about a class, knowing who their boyfriend was or being familiar with their other commitments, this information became relevant to their work style. While there is a threshold that can be crossed, having these relationships made people want to be together and meet to work on our campaign.

2. Patience

Work must be productive if you want it to be completed with ten people in the room. Discussions required little interruptions and patience to develop the great ideas, because if someone was in a rush or felt anxious, everyone could tell and the feeling spread. 

3. Being concise

Making your point directly in a group conversation instead of beating around the bush when talking is incredibly important. Being on my Mojo team taught me to articulate well and think of things in terms of the key takeaway instead of the process of doing it.

4. Working together instead of silo-ing off 

My Mojo team met so much not to discuss what everyone's roles were doing, but to do work then and there. Instead of somewhere to talk about what we would do, we would sit with 2-4 people and crank out the content after discussing its purpose. This is where teamwork shined, whether we were working on a Google doc or collaborating to make a video. 

Because of exhibiting these behaviors and presenting our work in an engaging manner, my team won the internal competition of the best campaign! I'm still in touch with most of them today, and four of us were at the Career Fair on behalf of Mizzou or a company they work for. Thanks to Mojo for a great experience!

Hannah, Taylor, me and Lauren at the Meet & Greet reception before the Career Fair

Four-faced

This semester has gotten off to an interesting start, one reason being it is not my most intellectually rigorous semester. Two of my classes are assistantships, one is a staff journalism class, one is a thesis seminar and the last is a lecture with a group project. I continued to question why I am so stressed without the essays, readings and note-taking I have done in the past, and figured out why. I’m currently living the lives of four people. And it’s the most difficult thing I have done in college.

As you proceed through college, you have the opportunity to take on more and more roles. And if there’s anything I’m learning this semester, it’s important to limit those roles so you can focus on yourself, your academics and not only all the faces you play.

It's hard to develop your personal brand when you're constantly being defined by your organizations. This is my personal Twitter profile from the other day. 

Switching gears is not easy. Keeping track of things is not easy. It’s embarrassing to forget about a reading or busy-work assignment because of meetings and commitments for another obligation. 

In my first life, I continue to work with Mojo as the Career Fair & PR Manager. This job has grown to 25 hours a week and leveled off with the Career Fair on Feb. 14, where I’m happy to announce that 300+ students and 42 companies attended. It was the life of logistics—printing things, running five workshops & hosting receptions before the Career Fair itself. And as much as I am an event planner for my social ongoings, running a production like this was definitely a challenge since you can’t please everyone. Now that it was successful, it's time to write feedback for next year's team. It never ends! 

In my second life, I’m the teaching assistant for a class I took junior year—Management of Strategic Communication. This course is academically rigorous for the students, and a testament to how they research and work on a team.  Like I mentioned in my post about being a TA, these students don’t know what else I have going on, nor should they care. But from my standpoint, it requires full attention to their needs and prioritizing them between other jobs. I am coaching two of the teams so they complete the best brand project they have, and I’m learning to be a “coach” without being an instructor, giving away the direction they need to go. Rather, I’m emphasizing education and trying my best to teach them through this process and not just continually make corrections for them. A lot easier said than done, I have to coach myself through being their coach. Would my TA have given me this feedback? Are you giving them the answers? What can they figure out without you if you nudge them in the right direction?  

In my next life, I’m on the community outreach team at the Columbia Missourian. The outreach team works to serve the city of Columbia with community journalism, constantly asking how we can engage our audience and cater to their needs. Because of my interest in the branding of journalism, I registered for this class to see how journalists and publications view audience development, social media tactics, community events and branding themselves. I work 6 to 8 hours of shifts a week at the Missourian and am completing a long-term research project for the publication over the semester. 

In my last life, I’m a graduate student writing my thesis proposal. And I am absolutely petrified. I'm just getting started, but it's hard to focus on something when homework from two other classes is there to distract. 

What's the point here? Amongst all of your commitments and double-lives, don't forget who YOU are. Making time to hang out with my friends and roommates, go to church and get out has saved my semester. Don't let the worst of things get you!