The rules for when you request a meeting with someone else

WARNING: Some borderline old-guy 'get off my lawn' about to follow...

The situation: You have the kind of job where a fairly large, variable, and growing collection of folks are contacting you to set up meetings and phone calls. These are usually for valid work/business reasons, so the requests themselves are reasonable, but I have noticed with more frequency that folks are not following (at least what I think are) the normal, customary, and pretty simple steps, and protocols in this situation.

So because no one asked, herewith are the rules for when you request a meeting with me, (not actually me, just using the collective me here. Is that a thing? Who cares, it's my blog).

1. If this is the first interaction you are having with this person, explain (succinctly), who you are, what you do, the company you are working for or represent. Make sure you convince the person you are not insane.

2. State clearly the purpose and goal for the requested meeting. Bonus points if the purpose/goal of the meeting actually helps this person solve one of their problems, and not just helps you.

3. Adapt to the technology, communication, and other preferences of the person who you are requesting to meet with. This means adapting to at least the following:

A. Communication preferences - email, text, LinkedIn, etc. Example, and this one happens to me a ton, if you send me a LinkedIn message asking for a meeting, I am 99% of time going to provide my email address and ask you to email me details, an invite, etc. This is due to the fact that I, along with just about everyone else in the world, manages my time on a calendar that is integrated with my email. No one manages their time on with a LinkedIn calendar because such a calendar DOES NOT EXIST. I'm ok with being contacted on LinkedIn, but I am not ok having to manually update my calendar because you prefer to use LinkedIn.

B. More about calendars. If you are requesting the meeting from someone else, DO NOT send them a link to your own Web Calendar or scheduling tool as ask them to find a time for the meeting. YOU are asking for the meeting. It is really cheeky and presumptuous to make a meeting request and then ask me to do your work (managing your calendar) for you.

C. Adapt to the time zone preferences of the person you are requesting the meeting with. Again for me, I am usually on ET. Your request or offer of day/time options for the meeting needs to state the time in ET. It is ok, even preferable, to list your time zone too, (if it is different). But don't ask me to have a meeting at 3PM Mountain Time and force me to figure that out. I know this is a small gripe, but once again, you are asking me for my time.  

4. Confirm the meeting is set by 'accepting' the calendar invite. This is really for both parties of the meeting, but we really don't need another round of emails that 'confirm' the meeting is set. 'Accepting' or 'Replying Yes' to the calendar invite is the confirmation.

5. Sometimes, the person you are requesting the meeting with does not or can't meet with you. It happens. And sometimes they either don't give you a reason for declining the meeting or give you a reason that you don't like. It happens. Accept it. You are still a wonderful person, I promise.

That's all I have for a quick rant on this. I didn't even mention at the top that I am writing this in my favorite writing spot ever, the Delta Sky Club. Nice to be back out on the road. And solid upgrades on the snacks, Delta.

Did I miss any 'meeting request protocol' rules?

Let me know in the comments.

Have a great week!

Re: Meeting Agenda (Revised)

Here is the meeting agenda you received:

Project Status Review Meeting

1. Current Status of Project ABCHorrible stock image. They do look happy though.

2. Sub-committee reports

A. Operations

B. Communications

C. Marketing

D. IT

E. Finance

F. Anyone else we forgot (HR?)

3. Review of high-level Project plans

4. Open Issues

5. Discuss next meeting

Based on what actually happens at most of these kinds of meetings, here's a take on the revised agenda:

Project Status Review Meeting

1. Current Status - and yes, we will continue to meet about this project until the last bit of light and hope has been extinguished from your soul

2. Sub-committee Reports

A. Operations - Oh yeah, nothing says 'efficiency' like bullet points with cool animations!

B. Communications - what do they do again? They never seem to make any sense.

C. You have likely faded out already, but it will be your turn soon.

D. Strange guy from Purchasing that wears suspenders. Or is it Shipping? Same thing I guess.

E. They really need to supply donuts at these meetings.

F. Guy from Finance who keeps talking to himself under his breath. That is weird.

G. Dude that works from home, who always has a dodgy phone connection, and no one has ever seen

H. WAKE UP!  It's your turn!!!!

I. Relax you gave your 2 minute update, the other 58 minutes of your life, well, just let them go.

J. Couldn't we have just posted all this on the Project Management system ? What's that? Oh right, we don't have one.

3. Time to break out the iPhone. The rest of the attendees will think you are a jerk, but it's worth it. You are multi-tasking darn it! Once the MS Project handouts get passed around the table, your eyes will glaze over anyway and you need something to keep alert.

4. Open Issues?  Yes, I have one.  Why are there no donuts at these meetings? I guess I have another one, what does 'work at home' guy really do?  Are you sure he even works here?

5. Next meeting - No, please don't make me go through this again.  Unless there are donuts.

I know what you are thinking, another hack post about time wasted in meetings, offering no solutions, not a shred of insight, and perhaps wasting your time just as much as the badly run meetings that it attempts to (lamely) lampoon.

So now I am forced to offer this suggestion - at your next 'Project Status Review Meeting' or close approximation in your organization, take the 'official' agenda and during the meeting mark it up with what truly happens, with what you are actually thinking, and what the true agenda should have been.

Then let me know how far off the mark I was.

The Conference Room Paradox

It’s 10:00 AM on a Tuesday and you are standing huddled in the hallway with six or seven of your colleagues all awkwardly clutching notepads, files, coffee (and not the take out cups with protective plastic lids, regular office type mugs with funny sayings like ‘Number 1 Boss’ or ‘Wake me up when it’sflickr - faungg Friday’ on them), and maybe a laptop to take notes. Your standing weekly status/update/check-in/whatever meeting with the extended group is booked for 10, and the ‘big’ conference room, the only one relatively close to your cube farm that will comfortably fit everyone has been put on ‘reserve’ for this date and time for the next 179 weeks.

As usual there is another group meeting in the conference room before you, and once again their meeting has not broken up by their allotted ending time. So you do the right thing, you and your group give them a minute or two to wrap-up, no need to get all uppity about an odd few minutes.

It is now 10:03 and the conference room door is still closed, someone puts an ear up to the door and can hear some animated and excited (but muted from behind the closed door) conversations going on inside. Could be something innovative and exciting and important going on in there. Or it could be just another work team making casual small talk as their meeting winds up.  Hard to say, but you decide it doesn’t matter anyway, it is now 10:04 and your time is now being wasted, so you give the token quick ‘double-knock’ as a split-second warning and immediately open the door and state (politely but firmly), ‘Hi - I believe we have the room at 10:00’.

The folks inside do the right thing, quickly gather up their assortment of belongings (remarkably similar to all the stuff your team is carrying), and beat a hasty retreat to the door, pairs of participants sharing final bits of information, giving directions, making plans, etc.  You can’t help but hear most of what they are saying as your teams intermingle during the ‘file out/file in’ process.  It does sound like they were working on some interesting ideas on the new product line you have heard some rumors about.  Definitely way more interesting (and probably important) than another weekly meeting reviewing the same list of action items/tasks/statuses or whatever that you have to endure for the next 55 minutes.

But none of that really matters when availability of the ‘big’ conference room is at stake.  It is kind of a mark of status and importance to have a standing claim to a few hours a week of time using that prized resource.  Good thing when your assistant booked the room for you (for the next 179 weeks), the scheduling program didn’t ask you for a justification or an explanation of exactly how you manage to harness and direct insight, creativity, and innovation into exact one-hour increments on the same day every week.

You know you have all been there before. The big conference room paradox. Organizations drag everyone into a central location called ‘the office’, but then parcel out space in small increments of cubes and private offices, and there is hardly any space to actually interact and communicate and collaborate. The ‘big’ conference room becomes highly prized as a gathering place, and slots are tightly distributed by the hour, and snatched up without much thought to importance or value to the enterprise.

Dang, I just heard a knock, I can’t finish this post with an epic conclusion since my hour is up, I guess I’ll have to hold that thought until next Tuesday at 10:00, (or 10:04).