Andy Grove's Tips on Running Effective Meetings

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I read Andy Grove's 'High Output Management' a few years ago and he had an entire chapter on how to schedule and run effective meetings.  Wish more of my colleagues, partners and customers would read this. Here is a summary (with some of my own best practices) for the time-constrained -

There are two kinds of meetings -

1. Process Oriented Meetings - in which knowledge is shared and information exchanged. There are 3 types of Process Oriented Meetings that Intel uses -

    • One-on-Ones with Reports - Set expectations with your reports that they come with a list of items to discuss.  It is okay for you to have a list of items as well to ask your report to focus on, but the onus is on the report to make the best use of your time.  Supervisors are encouraged to learn during these meetings and 'ask one more question' to understand all aspects of the information being shared.  

Andy recommends a rolling schedule where the next 1x1 is scheduled after the current one ends.  I prefer a weekly cadence with my direct reports.

    • Staff Meetings - chaired by the supervisor, it provides a forum for all her reports to participate and discuss topics that require a decision by a larger group involving other groups in the company.  This helps get differing points of views on the table, which ideally, would lead to a robust review of pros/cons of decisions in a friendly and safe environment.
    • Operation Reviews - conducted at a regular cadence to share status updates.   An example would be a Product Marketing team updating the sales team at the beginning of a quarter of new SKUs added to the price-book.   
2. Mission Oriented Meetings - that focus on solving a particular problem and frequently produce decisions. These meetings need a chair who clearly understands the meeting's objective. This person is typically the one that called the meeting and has the highest stake in the outcome of the meeting. 

The chair must send out an agenda ahead of time and once the meeting is over, the chair must nail down exactly what happened by sending out minutes that summarize the discussion that occurred, the decision made, and the actions to be taken. 

The chair is also encouraged to maintain discipline - making sure participants arrive on time and don't waste everyone else's time.  Andy doesn't really go into some of the 2020 decade challenges like how to make sure participants turn their videos on.  It significantly upgrades the meeting experience as it allows participants to observe and react to body language.

Online meetings have their own challenges and it is our mission to make it just a tad bit easier for participants and put a smile on their faces going into a meeting in which they will have their video on.