Effective C-Suite Meetings

According to a 2018 Harvard Business Review study, CEOs of large companies (an average of $13 billion in revenue) attended 37 meetings per week and spent 72% of their total work time in meetings.  In my experience, many of these meetings lack purpose, structure, outcomes and leave participants frustrated and key decisions unmade.

One of the roles that I enjoy most as a Leadership Coach is working with CEOs or Chairs to improve Executive Meetings.  It is also an opportunity to shape team dynamics, role model new habits and work on policy deployment. It can be an effective and practical vehicle to change team and business performance, as well as building corporate culture that works.

Few coaches have the C-Suite experience to credibly attend and shape executive meetings, and for this reason having a team coach sit in, observe and feedback on meeting effectiveness is rare in many Boards and Executive Committees.

A simple Google search will throw up several formulas and acronyms which would proport to be the solution for the effective executive meeting.  In my experience there is rarely a one-size-fits-all approach, hence the value of working with a coach/advisor to gradually iterate and improve meeting and thus team effectiveness.  However, the guidelines below are often a good place to start the conversation:

By observing, feeding back and soliciting ideas to improve, team dynamics and engagement improve and over time executive decision making becomes a competitive advantage.

1. Establishing and Agreeing Purpose – generally the purpose of bringing the executive team together is to align around context, discuss the biggest issues and make decisions to support the delivery of strategy. In contrast, in my experience many executive meetings become information sharing exercises where the motivation of participants is to avoid collaboration or support, and simply leave the meeting unscathed.
2. Build the right agenda – Often agenda are developed bottom up, participants asked what they want to ‘bring to the meeting’. Agenda should be developed from strategy down – i.e. we discuss and decide on the things that have the biggest impact on delivering operational or strategic outcomes for the annual plan and beyond.
3. Balance Operations and Strategy – often the proportion of time spent discussing day-to-day versus long-term defines the attention of the leadership and of the company. Discussing operations and strategy requires a different mindset and set of routines, so getting this balance right is important and needs to be thought out in the agenda.
4. Get Pre Read right – Pre read is a key part of an effective executive meeting. Participants should arrive armed with facts and data and having had a chance to think through the decision options.  This enables the valuable time ‘in the room’ to be spent on agreeing decisions and ensuring alignment and commitment.
5. Put real choices on the table – Agenda items should not be accepted without being accompanied by a question that provokes discussion and decisions, and preferably with a few options for consideration. It maybe that functional specialists have already discussed alternatives and are looking for a decision from the Executive Team – even in these circumstances alternatives should be shared, as this drives a discipline of considering all options.
6. Discuss and Decide: This sounds obvious, but many executive meetings I attend singularly lack discussion of options, and concrete decisions.  I attended a full day Executive Committee Meeting last month which concluded with a total of two decisions having been made – with attendees having travelled from four continents to attend this was a significant lost opportunity.  Instead of addressing the biggest decisions on behalf of the organisation,  executives spent most of the day updating each other on what their teams were doing.  Every agenda item should involve discussion and should conclude with a decision.
7. Check for Commitment: We have all been in meetings where the chair or presenter verbalises a decision and the meeting moves on.  In the ensuing break meeting participants gather around the coffee machine to express their lack of support.  A key habit for the chair, in relation to significant decisions, is to go round the table to check for commitment.  If participants are not able to fully support a decision they are asked ‘what would it take to get your full commitment’, often this solicits small tweaks in policy or implementation approach that leads all to be happier and the solution to be improved.  In cases where the changes are not acceptable, it is important to understand why the decision does not work for that area or function which allows the team to accept that risk or revisit the issue entirely.

There are many more habits or guidelines that I have worked with Executive Teams to develop which work for them and their context, this is by no means an exhaustive list.

I believe that working with a coach to observe and improve executive meetings is one of the most powerful ways to improve executive team efficiency and effectiveness.  By observing, feeding back and soliciting ideas to improve, team dynamics and engagement improve and over time executive decision making becomes a competitive advantage.

If you are looking for support to develop your Executive Team and meetings, I would be happy to discuss this further.  Check out my website at alexlewiscoaching.com or contact me on +44 7793425755.