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

TIPS: Sending emails in corporate America

This semester, I'm the teaching assistant for a course I took in 2011 called Management of Strategic Communication. One of the memorable class periods is a lecture called Writing for Business, where our professor gives us tips on business correspondence and writing points-of-view in a company setting.

The tips include using headlines, subheads and bullet points to break off important information, writing brief emails and using subject lines to your advantage. This LinkedIn article that I found immediately after the lecture actually reflects a lot of the points we learn.

After running a Career Fair last week and reaching out to numerous recruiters at companies across the country, we developed the science of sending email to someone working in corporate America. Here are some of the tips I've learned in my correspondence with working professionals.

1. Be mindful of the time of day you send an email.
With the Career Fair, I informed liaisons that they were only allowed to send correspondence between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, or else the message would get lost in the receiver's inbox. A lot of office people receive daily wrap-up emails, so the message you thought of at midnight might sink to the bottom of the pile because of morning news. We always had luck catching people during business hours, sometimes even receiving a response in minutes as the person cleans out his or her email.

2. Send it at a good time of the week.
No one answers a work phone call or email you send them on a Friday. If you send something on a Monday, it might get answered by the end of the week but gets drowned into a to do list. I try sending all messages on Tuesdays when people are at their desk and on their game.

3. Tell the addressee how you got their email address if they don't know you.
With large companies making everyone's email address their first and last name, it's not difficult to figure out how to get in touch with someone at a company. But if you want to be on their urgent list and receive a response, you have to give them a connection as to why they should respond to you. I've made a point to always include what my relation is to the addressee to guarantee a response and not seem creepy. If you get their name from someone else, say that. If you found them on LinkedIn and have a mutual friend, say that. Establishing the connection is important!