Unprepared for a meeting?

Ever been in a meeting where everyone was prepared?

Where everyone already looked at the agenda, thought long and hard about all the conflicts, and was ready to contribute towards making a decision?

If this is rarely the case, you have three options.

1. Reschedule the meeting.
   
2. Give everyone a little time to read through the agenda and notes to prepare at the start of the meeting.
   
3. Pretend everyone is prepared and try to push through your agenda.
   

Option one shows that you value everyone’s time. Your coworkers are likely overworked and behind projects. They’ll be more than happy to have time to work on their projects instead of talking about it.

Option two is efficient. People read faster than you can talk. Once everyone’s on the same page, you can dive into the hard decisions. It acknowledges that people may be overworked with too many meetings to go to, but gives people a chance to catch up and make a decision.

Option three is the most common one. And the least efficient. It wastes times and more importantly, emotional attention.

The person who leads the meeting quickly realizes not everyone’s prepared, and gets frustrated that this is happening yet again.

The leader’s attention is split between getting some people up to speed and being frustrated with the situation.

The people who aren’t prepared feel the pressure. They also feel frustrated for having too many projects on their plate. Their mind drifts to all the things they could be doing.

There’s a feeling of inauthenticity as both parties smile at each other, pretending to be fully engaged in the meeting.

Which option will you choose?

Thanks for caring!

With gratitude,

Anwell Tsai