Making Meetings Matter More
By: Neill Harris
Tags: Support, Cooperation, Mwc Work, Friends, Meetings Makeover

A friend’s guide to making more out of meetings.

Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash

Neill Harris, PhD

I met Bruce when I was just starting out in my career. He had a tremendous impact on my life and my career, not on the technical side, but on the ‘person-to-person’ side. Bruce has interest and time and for everyone. And yet, he, together with others, accomplishes so much. He said, “People don’t work with me or for me. We collaborate.” Colleague and volunteer alike are always ready to work with, or ‘collaborate’ with Bruce.

Men and women work well with him. It didn’t matter if a person is ‘higher or lower’ than he in any organisation, he works well with everyone. To me, he is an HR person’s delight!

He is amazing! He is a living lesson in how to relate to people.

Meetings are opportunities

From the outset, let me tell you that a ‘meeting’, to Bruce, was any time spent with one or more people. Over coffee, discussing with him how he handled people, he put it this way, “It is important to me that ‘people make meetings’ and not that ‘meetings just make decisions’.” So, to him, the person is more important than the function of the meeting.

His quote, which often springs to mind, is: Meetings are opportunities to make friends and influence tasks’. He has a wonderful way of phrasing his ideas or ‘sayings’, as he refers to them. And he has many of them, all of which are meaningful and practical.

A conversation, while relaxing with a friend, Bruce classifies in the same ‘category of his use of time’ as a strategy-meeting, in which he has the chair. Bruce is different from many of us.

Priority for people

Taking a genuine interest in people takes time, so how does Bruce put his ‘priority for people’ into practice?

Well, since ‘a person’ is really what matters to Bruce, three ‘behaviour- factors’ make up his priority for people:

1. Time. He spends time with each person, when appropriate. When dealing with a task one-to-one, naturally, but also before or after a meeting. He invariably has a comment or question and spends a few minutes talking to people. Perhaps, not at every meeting, but frequently and enough to develop a friendship.

2. Attention. When talking to Bruce, you feel that you have his undivided attention. The serious issues of the meeting, or excitement of the occasion, don’t detract from the attention he gives you.

3. Interest. He obviously has a good memory and a good way of classifying what he remembers, because his comments and questions are related directly to you and your interests.

More to Bruce than meetings

I’ve known Bruce as a close friend for about two years. Not that we would spend a lot of time socially, but I made a point of frequent meeting up with him and, if I can, finding limited tasks in which we can ‘collaborate’.

I find that it is not so much by what he does that makes people like him and like working with him, but by the way he supports them. Many people complain about business meetings that they have to attend. Socially, others avoid meeting people that ‘they have little time for’. Bruce says, “Any ‘meeting’ is an opportunity and time to develop an interest in a person. Everyone is interesting!”

Different words, generous meanings

Subtly different, I quickly grasped Bruce’s different use of words. He uses words more generous than many people do. For example, where I might use ‘dealing’ with a person, he would use ‘cooperating’ with them. As he told me, “’Dealing’ sounds a little remote like working to a contract. ‘Cooperating’ means that we are both involved, responsible and equally to blame if ‘the wheels fall off’.”

If success brought kudos, then he shared it equally. He gave credit where it was due and took it respectfully, when due to him. But it was his ‘cooperation’ in sharing the blame that made people really willing to work with Bruce. He was generous in all aspects of cooperation.

Bruce’s #selfie-sayings

Some of which I’ve quoted above, Bruce’s ‘sayings’ not only described how he interacted with people, but also how he handles tasks, be they at work, personal or social. So typical of his respect for everyone, he once said, “My sayings I say only to himself.” It was no wonder that people appreciated and approached him.

I learnt much from his sayings about working and living with others. He wouldn’t call them ‘rules’, as I did. ”No, not rules! They are guidelines. I find,” he explained, “that, as long as I stay within my lines, people are ok with me!”

His sayings remind himself how best to deal with people. With a chuckle, he describe his guidelines, “I feel that I’m like a pilot landing my light plane. Stay within the lines that the radar draws on my ‘social’ instruments and all well be well.”

On giving advice

“As is often said,” he commented, “our advice is usually 70% for ourselves, rather than for others.” In a conversation, he would very seldom ‘climb in’ with what he thought that I should do. He offered advice almost exclusively, when asked. Occasionally, as a friend, when he thought that I may really benefit, he would offer his advice by saying, “What about …?” and leave it to me to take it up or not.

‘Level-2-switch’

A guideline of his, which I use all the time and which makes dealing with people very easy and productive, is his ‘Level-2-switch’. He worked with others on one of two levels, one of specification and another of operation. If the other person was responsible for the task, ‘the decider’, he called them, then he would listen carefully to what they expected to be done. Then he would do what they wanted done in the way they wanted it done. Even if he thought that there was a more efficient way of doing it, he would do it their way. “They had to feel in control,” he said. He would comment, but never argue for his way to dominate.

If he was in control, for example, in compiling a specification, he expected it to be done his way, with, of course, input from others. But there was no doubt who would decide things, when the task was his!

So, his ‘Level-2-switch’ means that he would switch his behaviour to supporting or controlling depending on who was responsible. Should the task be assigned to him at some stage, he would switch to the ‘control-level’ from the ‘support-level’.

This, as many of his sayings, helps me work with others effectively and not, as in this case, appear to be wanting to get out of the task or take it over.

Everyone is interesting

Thank you Bruce, for your friendship, your wisdom and the way you treat me, that I may treat others in a similar way. You have taught me that a person makes a meeting more important than ‘matter and minutes’.

Bruce was different. He made every meeting matter more.