A hot topic of conversation in most companies is the sheer number of meetings. Too many of them, too many people in them to get things done – decisions made, processes complete, insights shared etc. In this virtual world, where unless we are actively included we feel excluded we need to build on trust and be aware of how social needs work around this.
We do need less and smaller meetings to move at the pace we need to, as I’ve covered from other angles in other blogs. So today I wanted to share with you some insights I got from an article from the HBR (Havard Business Review).
Does this scenario ring true for you? It does for me:
You and about 20 of your co-workers are all on a Teams meeting, discussing the details of some requirement/ project/ need. Some people are fighting for attention, trying to get a word in. Others won’t stop talking. Others have tuned the meeting out, retreating to their email or phones. At the end of the meeting, the only real outcome is the decision to schedule a follow-up meeting with a smaller group — a group that can actually make some decisions and execute on them.
Why does this happen? People hate to be excluded, so meeting organisers often invite anyone who might need or want to be involved to avoid hurt feelings. But the result is that most of the people in the meeting are just wasting time; some may literally not know why they’re there.
Whether it’s a meeting, an email thread, or a project team, people need to be excluded from time to time. Being selective frees people up to join more urgent engagements, get creative work done, and stay focused on their most important tasks. How, then, can we do this gracefully?
The article recommended three steps.
1) Focus on key employees to protect them from overload.
When paring down a meeting list or an email thread many look for those who clearly don’t need to be on it. We suggest the opposite approach. Who are the valuable, collaborative employees you are most tempted to include? Now ask yourself: are they really necessary?
This question is posed because one of the foundational concepts to thoughtful exclusion is known as collaborative overload. The term was coined in a 2016 HBR cover story from leadership and psychology professors Rob Cross, Reb Rebele, and Adam Grant. Drawing on original research, they claimed that up to a third of collaborative efforts at work tend to come from just 3% to 5% of employees. These employees are often massively over-burdened and, in turn, at risk for burning out.
If the same small group of people get invited to every task force, every project, every brainstorming meeting, there’s no way they can keep up with more valuable tasks. That’s why the first step to thoughtfully excluding people is to spot those employees at the greatest risk for collaborative overload, and then be incredibly selective about when to include them in meetings or other projects. If you are adopting my request of agenda and minutes for all meeting, then this group of people can still contribute with comments before (based on the agenda) or after (based on minutes).
2) Address people’s natural social needs.
The acts of excluding and being excluded are intensely emotional, even when people know they’re invited to too many meetings and resent getting so many emails.
That’s because we humans are social creatures; we naturally want to help those whom we consider close to us. Those who suffer from collaborative overload take on such heavy burdens in part because they are compelled by these ancient impulses. It’s the same reason leaders over-include: They want others to feel like they belong.
The kind of exclusion that doesn’t trigger backlash or stymie productivity must address people’s varying social needs. If we look at who suffers from collaborative overload the most, we end up with two groups: employees who are too busy to be included in everything and employees who believe being over-included is a sign of prestige and status.
It’s up to us to identify both groups and show them their time is better spent on tasks with the highest return. Sample language might be variations on:
“I know you’ve got a lot of important work on your agenda, and I’d like to keep you off of this meeting so that you can focus on what you’ve already got. What do you think?”
“I’d like to take you off of this meeting invite, because someone else has a similar point of view. At the same time, you’d be able to add a ton of value to this other area because you bring a unique perspective. Would you be open to that?”
“I noticed that a couple of deadlines have slipped recently and that’s pretty unusual for you. Are there meetings, projects, or other things on your calendar that are consuming time or energy, that we might be able to reallocate? We all have times where we need some breathing room. How can I help?”
When we approach exclusion with social brains in mind, we can be more thoughtful in how we frame their directive.
3) Set clear expectations.
Exclusion only hurts when people expect to be included.
The neuroscience of expectations shows there’s a great cost to mismatched expectations. When the anterior cingulate cortex, a brain region heavily involved in expectation matching and processing social exclusion, detects an error, it kickstarts a process that drains huge amounts of cognitive energy. This happens every time we encounter something unexpected, like seeing a favourite restaurant closed or getting disinvited to a meeting we’d normally join. That’s because the brain wants to make sense of the situation; it expected one thing and got another. Those eager to get the most out of their team members, by redirecting their efforts to more valuable activities, must understand and appreciate this aspect of the brain’s behaviour.
If you only need a small subset of people attending a meeting, communicate with the rest of the group to ensure each person understands why they are not needed. Laying this groundwork also helps mitigate what psychologists call “social threat.” Just as loud noises and scary images can feel physically threatening, humans are wired to avoid threats in social situations, whether it’s anxiety, uncertainty, or isolation.
Managing people’s expectations ahead of time can act as a buffer against people feeling these kinds of social threats. For instance, the brain craves certainty, and being explicit about meeting participants’ roles offers it. Most of us also crave fairness, which you can provide by being transparent about the reasons for someone’s exclusion. That way, people can be excluded without the sting of feeling excluded.
Thoughtful exclusion in action
We are all responsible for appreciating these fundamental, albeit fragile, nuances of perception. When the time comes to organise a new meeting, we should make it perfectly clear who needs to be involved, who doesn’t, and the reasons why. This way, people will better understand how their role fits into the team’s mission, and with knowledge of other people’s roles, they’ll know who is working on what.
Think back to the scenario of a chaotic meeting with 20 people. Thoughtful exclusion pares down that meeting to a core team of six or seven. Since the organiser now thinks hard about whose skills and time are most valuable — and whose would be better served elsewhere — if they graciously decide you (and a dozen other people) have more important things to work on. As a result, the meeting is more effective and reaches the required outcome sooner and those who were excluded make greater progress on other items.
Scale that behaviour throughout your team, and you have more people making better use of their time, tackling tasks where their contributions are known, not assumed, to add value.
Exclusion may earn a bad rap in a climate where we are admirably sensitive about others’ sense of belonging. And it’s important to remember that thoughtful exclusion is only possible with an appreciation of the benefits of diverse perspectives and inclusive decision-making. But in order to avoid the dreaded logjam of over-inclusion, the brain science makes it clear that, with the right approach, thoughtfully leaving people out could become one of the greatest managerial moves we can make.
I really encourage all of you to consider these aspects when creating meetings and to challenge those inviting you to adopt them too.
Until next week…..
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