Optional Meetings

#1

I was reading the other day about making meetings optional.

I read somewhere that if a meeting is optional it requires the facilatator to step up in advance. They have to get out the agenda before people decide to show up or not.

Meetings then must be interesting and provide value.

So since my brain went down this path during my morning :coffee: I have a few :question:

  1. Has anyone tried this? Results?
  2. Can all meetings be optional?
  3. What would I think of the people who never came to optional meetings?

Okay ready for suggestions. :ear:

Thanks in advance.

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#2

Hi @glenn I’m a bit slow to the game with this post. I must have missed it. I went through this liberal phase where I thought I could make meetings optional and most of the team opted not to come :frowning:

would luv to hear if anyone else has tried this

#3

@adam first week was okay. Many came to see what I meant. They wanted to know if the information put out at the meetings is something they would be held accountable for. Answer was yes.

Also I ask for suggestions on what they did want to hear about.

Finally, they ask if they did not come if it would hurt chances for advancement. I said honestly I could say no, but if everything else was equal - participation in voluntary things does come into play.

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#4

This is an interesting concept - and I love your thought process.

However, I think despite the best intentions that the best of your (our) team have, if they can miss a meeting - they will. Call me cynical! Why not, I do! hahaha Maybe it wouldn’t be all the time but that process would lack consistency. I feel that a meeting platform is to not only discuss matters together but is beneficial for training, internal systems, learning from others experiences, and ensuring that we are a united front. Communication is such a high priority for our clients and customers - and actually, is one of the highest demands from our staff. Meetings allow us to all be communicative. Emailing an agenda is similar to that of communicating via email - we always find our team has questions over matters emailed out about system changes, refinements, upgrades etc so we cover these items regularly in meetings together. I really don’t mean to sound negative because those that think out of the box are potentially those that can change the world! This is just my opinion. :laughing:

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#5

Optional meetings are working out fine. People that show up are interested.

Side effect was I ended up just canceling 50% of the meeting, because I did not need the big lets get everyone together event.

Now we do more can the 3 of us get together and talk about …

Training events are still required.

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#6

@glenn Lehmann That is amazing news - thank you for keeping us posted on this. The side effect sounds like a real time saver. Great innovation for your team, giving them back time as well :slight_smile:

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