Stop going around the horn! 

Making all meetings less boring and more engaging

-Nathan Jamail, Keynote Speaker, Bestselling Author

Why most meetings suck:

Have you ever attended a boring meeting with your boss or organization? Or worse- you yourself hosted your own boring meeting?  If you said yes, don’t sweat it, you’re not alone, in fact most leaders have- though not all of us recognize it.  The most common contributor for this is the infamous, “Going around the horn” for updates.  Going around the horn can be a good activity during a meeting, but when used for peer updates it leads to a meeting “for two” attended by many.

An example:

It’s Monday morning and you’re in your office on a leadership call with your peers located in 6 different cities across the US.  The call has been going for about 10 minutes, with laughs and jabs at each other, and just small talk.  The boss then says, “lets get started and go around the horn and have each of you give your weekly update”.  Since you always go 5th or 6th that is your sign to mute your phone, grab a cup of coffee and walk to the break room and get that glazed do-nut you saw sitting there earlier.  When you re-enter your office you hear your name being called out and also notice a peer had messaged you that you were being called on.  So you promptly unmute yourself and say, “sorry I didn’t realize I was on mute, stupid phone” and the conversation continues even though everyone knows what really happened, cause they all do the same thing too.   Everyone tunes out when the boss is ‘going around the horn’.

Here are some observations and tips to think about when it comes to a leader using (or not using) “around the horn”.

Conversation for two attended by ten:

When leaders go around the horn for updates, best practices and challenges, the leaders is using this time to get their updates from each person in a mass setting so they can check their own box. This is one person getting information from many while the other attendees wait for their turn to also share this information.

Problem:

The other participants are not listening or engaged, so they do email or text or go get coffee.  Second problem is that by giving time for each person to give their updates it takes almost an hour of the meeting (or more).  Yet the only real engagement of the TEAM is in their few minutes of presenting.  Not a good use of everyone’s time.

Justification:

We the leaders justify this behavior because we say it benefits everyone to hear what their peers are experiencing so they can learn as well, since they most likely are having similar issues and situations going on.  However:  no one else is listening in most cases.

Goal:

Is for all the peers to learn real “best practices and real struggles” that they will engage in and learn from.  The only way to achieve this in a timely manner is to make sure they leaders know all the updates before the meeting and chooses the only ones that are truly beneficial for others and not just an around the horn update from all.

Principle of great meetings:

Meetings are for employees not the leader.  The leader should get their individual updates in individual meetings prior to the team meeting through one on ones and/or reports.  The best is the combination from both.

Solution:

Conduct one on ones and have each direct employee compete a weekly report that consist of important updates, highlights, struggles, numbers, etc.  The leaders then uses that data to choose two, maybe three, people to share their stories in the beginning of each meeting.

This achieves four real benefits:

1. Leaders now knows what will be shared with others and will know the message is in alignment with what they want the others to hear and need to hear.
2. It truly recognizes those that are doing the right things and gives those the recognition they deserve while helping others.
3. Other employees will want to do better, so they can be the ones sharing during the next meeting, at least those that want to be better and achieve more!
4. It only take 10 to 15 minutes of the meeting, allowing the remainder of the meeting to be about teaching, coaching and preparing the employees for their upcoming week.

“Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water”

The biggest mistake leaders make to correct “The bad meeting” problem is they have less meetings or they stop having them all together.  The key is not to stop having meetings, the key is to make bad meetings good meetings.  Given all the new technology, it’s crazy to believe that our number one problem in business is still communication, so the solution can not be to communicate less, rather it is to communicate better.  This is more important now than ever given that most employees are working remote and don’t have the ability to meet in person.  This issue was around before the pandemic and it will be around long after.

Good uses of around the horn: There are situations when around the horn is appropriate.

1. At the end of a meeting allowing each person to ask questions or give a comment.
2. Sales number commitments for the week or month.
3. The key is it should be a short statement that is meant for the entire team that will motive, help, or for public accountability, but it must be a true value to the entire group.   

Final Thought

By the way, even if you don’t don’t fall into this trap, my challenge is for all of us is to work on making all of our meetings we lead better this week than last week.  This is not about gimmicks or tricks- it is about value and impact.