How to Run Effective, Successful Meetings

Victor1558 (CC BY 2.0)

Editor’s note: When the article originally appeared in SGR‘s OnlineFirst collection, Professor Kauffeld kindly provided further background on the article, including the three most surprising things about the study’s findings. Read the Q&A here.

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Are you tired of unproductive meetings? Here’s how to make the most of meeting time and boost your team’s productivity.

Using results obtained from real organizations, a study in Small Group Research (SGR) examined participants’ interactions and communication behaviors during meetings—some functional, some not—to find the formula for success.

Simone Kauffeld and Nale Lehmann-Willenbrock, both of Technische Universität Braunschweig, published “Meetings Matter: Effects of Team Meetings on Team and Organizational Success” in SGR‘s April 2012 Special Issue on Organizational Meetings. Click here to view the Table of Contents.

The abstract:

This study follows the idea that the key to understanding team meeting effectiveness lies in uncovering the microlevel interaction processes throughout the meeting. Ninety-two regular team meetings were videotaped. Interaction data were coded and evaluated with the act4teams coding scheme and INTERACT software. Team and organizational success variables were gathered via questionnaires and telephone interviews. The results support the central function of interaction processes as posited in the traditional input-process-output model. Teams that showed more functional interaction, such as problem-solving interaction and action planning, were significantly more satisfied with their meetings. Better meetings were associated with higher team productivity. Moreover, constructive meeting interaction processes were related to organizational success 2.5 years after the meeting. Dysfunctional communication, such as criticizing others or complaining, showed significant negative relationships with these outcomes. These negative effects were even more pronounced than the positive effects of functional team meeting interaction. The results suggest that team meeting processes shape both team and organizational outcomes. The critical meeting behaviors identified here provide hints for group researchers and practitioners alike who aim to improve meeting success.

To learn more about Small Group Research, please follow this link.

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Team Meeting Attitudes

Thomas A. O’Neill, University of Calgary, and Natalie J. Allen, University of Western Ontario, published “Team Meeting Attitudes: Conceptualization and Investigation of a New Construct” on November 21st, 2011 in Small Group Research. To view other OnlineFirst articles, please click here. Professor O’Neill kindly provided the following responses to the article.

Who is the target audience for this article?

We wrote this article for researchers and practitioners who are interested in team effectiveness. More specifically, our aim was to report on the interplay of team members’ attitudes toward team meetings (i.e., team meeting attitudes), team meeting effectiveness, team confidence, and team performance.

What inspired you to be interested in this topic?

Our interest in this topic was driven by our theory that individuals likely have relatively stable attitudes toward team meetings. Importantly, we see these attitudes as unique because they are likely different from an individual’s attitudes about meetings in general.

Were there findings that were surprising to you?

Our biggest surprise was perhaps the power of team meeting attitudes to explain meeting related behavior, such as meeting effectiveness and time spent in meetings, as well as their indirect association with team task performance through increased team confidence.  In essence, team meeting attitudes matter!

How do you see this study influencing future research and/or practice?

Our hope is that researchers will be inspired to further elaborate on our initial conceptualization of team meeting attitudes. For example, should this construct be considered unidimensional or are there multiple dimensions of this construct that could help us better understand what aspects of meetings individuals like and dislike (e.g., attitudes toward making decisions in meetings versus doing substantive task work in meetings)? Practically, it is too early to make staffing decisions based on this research but we believe that tried-and-true meeting best practices, such as using an agenda and starting the meeting on time, are essential for sound team functioning and would be helpful for many teams – and might even improve the TMA of some members. Finally, as we note in the paper, all else being equal, if we were given a choice between a team member who values team meetings versus one did not, our evidence supports selecting the first one.

How does this study fit into your body of work/line of research?

We are interested in the general question that many team researchers address — what characterizes effective teams?  Our findings suggest that teams made up of members with positive attitudes toward team meetings are likely to hold more effective meetings, meet for longer durations of time, and achieve higher performance through greater team confidence.

How did your paper change during the review process?

The largest change was the suggestion from the editor and reviewers to add a more complete treatment of how team meeting attitudes develop over time. We feel this addition greatly improved the contribution of the article, and we are grateful to the editor and reviewers for this, and other, suggestions.

What, if anything, would you do differently if you could go back and do this study again?

Administer longer surveys!

To learn more about Small Group Research, please click here.

Meetings at Work: Advancing the Theory and Practice of Meetings

Cliff W. Scott, Linda Rhoades Shanock and Steven G. Rogelberg, all of University of North Carolina at Charlotte, published “Meetings at Work: Advancing the Theory and Practice of Meetings” on November 23rd, 2011 in Small Group Research. To view other OnlineFirst articles, please click here.

The abstract:

Although advances in communication technology were once expected to diminish the need for synchronous work meetings, meeting activity in organizations continues to rise. Regrettably, the time and energy employees spend in work meetings is not matched by the amount of direct attention group and organizational scholars have paid to meeting phenomena. This special issue of Small Group Research helps to address this gap by presenting empirical studies of work meetings that explore the theory and practice of work meetings.

To learn more about Small Group Research, please follow this link.

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