The subject of today’s post is the Morning Meeting every industrial plant, or at least everyone I’ve ever worked with has. Though this post is directed at the M M, the same discussion also applies to all other meetings to a lesser or greater degree, depending on how productive yours may currently be.
There is just no substitute for talking out issues face to face, looking each other in the eye, and coming to an agreement about what, who, and when something is to be done.
Morning Meeting content varies widely across the board but if you make widgets, the events of the off going shift must be passed on to the oncoming shift and ensure that we are agreed on the “Plan Of The Day”. Yes, we have loads of paperwork and computer screens, but they soon turn to information overload. I’ve seen organizations try to use email for this purpose, but too much is lost trying to type (and then be read) all info that should be passed on. For example, we take shortcuts thinking we don’t need to go into detail on X, but then we don’t make ourselves clear. Most organizations find value in having those involved talk about it. This post stems from a plant that loved to talk about it, and talk about it, and talk about it.
This isn’t to say this plant didn’t know what they were doing. The group was very knowledgeable; they could really make widgets and even had some MBAs in the room. But, yet they found themselves with this bit of chaos each morning.
Meetings should be considered just another a system, and so a tweak here and there is needed to tune the system. Established routine meetings if not kept on track will evolve, and they don’t evolve towards being more organized or efficient. For those that may doubt this, physics even has laws about this. The 2nd law of Thermodynamics applies and very loosely states, as systems evolve, entropy increases, so over time, they will become more disordered. (Maybe a little smile).
Fundamental to conducting any type of meeting is a well thought out and posted agenda. Next would be the right attendees and they be able to express events, needs, ideas, agreements, directions, and understandings clearly in the setting. There is just no substitute for talking out issues face to face, looking each other in the eye, and coming to an agreement about what, who, and when something is to be done. It’s also essential that the meeting facilitator not allow the group to only talk about issues. Often the facilitator must press the discussion and ask David Allen’s question,”What’s the next action?” This is from his 2001 book “Getting Things Done”, it’s a great read, well worth your time.
The message would be, if you aren’t happy with meetings in your organization, understand it isn’t going to evolve to something better on its own. Someone must go out of their way and fix it. Make it you.