Some leaders appear to have a belief in meetings that approaches magical thinking. They seem to think that meetings are critical to the goals intrinsic to every organization: serve customer needs, realize a significant increase in team results and reach specific goals.

Yet, some questions come to mind: Through meetings, do employees actively take ownership of their work and accountability for running their part of the business? Do results hit and exceed stated goals?

It’s been my experience that it’s not unusual for employees to be simply told what to do, and even very reasonable goals can be left unmet.
I believe that an intentional leader can change all of this employee disengagement and disappointing results by simply stopping meetings. There’s a better way.

Appearance vs. doing
The definition of “meeting” is “an act of coming together, an assembly.” There is no reference to doing real work.

When people go to a meeting they usually grab something for note taking and off they go to receive the latest word and a possible list of “to do’s.” What often results is a very well-intentioned manager essentially “sprays” out information and “prays” the critical information sticks with team members.

In fact, there is not much real work and change accomplished here. There’s only an appearance of real work.

Since people learn by doing–making decisions, solving problem and opportunities, taking actions–the meeting experience is too passive and not a place to accomplish real work.

However, due to the personal time and energy expended, many leaders fall to the illusion that real work has been accomplished, actions will be taken and results will meet desired goals. When results indeed miss the mark, leaders and teams are disappointed, feel guilty and are not proud of their work.

Take action on the real work
Intentional leaders can decide to lead successful teams by conducting “work sessions.” These can be the forum for engaging team members in the opportunity to run their part of the business that is aligned to strategic goals. In work sessions, everyone is going to do real work through full participation and take responsibility for actions.

“Work” is defined as “to bring to pass; to fashion or create a useful product or service.”
As often happens, there’s a lesson in sports for business. Players do not go to meetings to win games. They do the work, planning and  taking action after action. In organizations, why should team members be any different?

Performance based agenda
Weekly work sessions, approximately two hours in duration, regularly engage all team members throughout an entire organization. All formal leaders can conduct regular work sessions, engaging their direct reports with a standard format to work through six parts of a performance based agenda.

Specific items to be worked for that week are to be appropriately listed under each agenda heading:

1. Measures of results (action register and results)
2. Improvement opportunities (for successful performance)
3. Teamwork (collaboration, innovation)
4. Reinforcement opportunities (behaviors and results for leading a successful organization)
5. Sharing and learning (a learning organization)
6. News and information (around the table/globe of key happenings for an informed team).

This is a "leadership practice" worth practicing. When leaders conduct such regular weekly work sessions, cultures change and transformation happens.

A new 20/80 rule
In work sessions, leaders talk only about twenty percent of the time. Eighty percent of the time, team members are proactively communicating their knowledge and insights.

Here’s what happens:

• Work groups become teams, showing respect and appreciation for one another as they work to common goals.
• Action items and key results are routinely delivered on time.
• There is constant investment in team members.
• Improvement opportunities become a living cycle of innovation, producing the best in competitive products, services and sustainable growth.

This is no illusion. This is the real work of leaders and teams. The exceptional results speak for the worth of real work accomplished by all team members.

Mary L. Burkhardt, BS, MA, CAS is a Senior Consultant at McArdle Ramerman. She helps clients create strategy and engagement for execution, positioning ever-maturing leaders and team members to win in a highly competitive global marketplace.

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