Don't Just Do Something, Stand There! Ten Principles for Leading Meetings that Matter

As you might expect from seasoned meetings leaders, the authors communicate in a conversational way, managing to keep the tone informal and funny, but never straying far off-topic. The book opens with an introduction laying out the authors' theoretical framework. The book's title sums it up well: Don't just do something, stand there. The authors advocate a low-key approach to running meetings. Don't micromanage. If you think you have all the answers, your meeting will most likely fail. Nor can you keep everyone happy all the time, or successfully defuse every conflict that rises up. What you can do, though, is manage meetings so that people take responsibility for their behavior. And when that happens, most of the details take care of themselves.

The authors achieve this state of meeting nirvana using something called differentiation/integration theory. According to "D/I theory," as it's known, effective groups operate by first differentiating the various assets, skills, and needs of group members, and then integrating them into a coherent whole. To illustrate the theory, the authors turn our attention to the course of human development. Human lives begin as a single cell, which divides and subdivides into different functions: a beating heart, a thinking brain, lungs that process oxygen, and so on. These cells, highly differentiated though they are, cohere into a living person.

Effective leaders try to mimic this process as they direct meetings. In the rest of the book, the authors lay out a blueprint for doing just that.

The book is divided into ten chapters, each illustrating one of the authors' ten principles of meetings that matter. The first six focus on managing others during meetings, while the final four deliver advice on managing yourself.

The first principle involves choosing whom to invite to a meeting. For a group to reach actionable decisions during a meeting, clearly the people with power to make such decisions must be in the room. Just as clearly, for implementation to be effective, the people tasked with executing those decisions should be present as well. Without their involvement and input, "buy in" cannot be assumed; and without buy-in among the rank and file, the best-laid plans can go astray.

For the authors, "getting the whole system into the room" is a key principle of effective meetings. The authors suggest that a good meeting will include people who collectively have the authority to act; the resources to act effectively, in terms of time and money; the expertise necessary to act wisely; the information that others don't have; and the need to be involved because they will be affected by the outcome and can speak to the consequences.

The next principle of good meetings is one that will be particularly important to control freaks and micromanagers. It goes like this: "Control what you can, let go what you can't." This means arriving at meetings fully prepared, setting reasonable, thought-out goals, and communicating them at the outset of the meeting. It also means paying special attention to details like securing an attractive meeting room and serving nice snacks. But, the author's argue, for good leaders, active control over meetings ends as soon as the meeting begins. As you heard before, you can't make people work well together as a group or come up with good ideas; all you can do is create an environment wherein those things can happen.

During the meeting, the authors argue that your main role is that of facilitator – making it as easy as possible for people to differentiate their opinions and integrate them into an effective action plan: the final goal of most meetings. You only step in when the conversation veers badly off the road that leads to that goal.

Even then, your role isn't that of a lion tamer cracking the whip, but rather that of a horse whisperer coaxing the beast that is the group back to the right trail. Interventions should be gentle and firm. Say a meeting drifts into chaos because people are veering away from the goal at hand. The authors suggest that the facilitator interrupt the proceedings to ask everyone what precisely it is they want, and how it aligns with the goal at hand. This exercise, they report, nearly always sets the meeting back on track.

At Mind Tools, we don't necessarily agree with this view. While in some situations a facilitating role may be appropriate, it's not appropriate in others.

For example, where you have individual responsibility for the outcome, or where you have a high level of expertise that needs to be contributed, it could be seen as irresponsible, or even negligent, to adopt such a passive role. In these situations you need to be actively engaged in shaping the outcome.

Back to the book, and the next principle is "explore the whole elephant." The phrase comes from the old parable about a group of blind men who encounter an elephant and try to guess what it is by stroking it. Each man reaches for a different part of the animal's body, and each settles on a unique guess at what it is. The one who grabs the beast's tale insists that it's a rope, while the one who finds himself at its leg reckons it's a tree. Rather than settle on an accurate answer to the riddle of what they've found, the men bicker.

Not good, say the authors. To ensure that meetings regard the "whole elephant," and not merely parts stripped of context, the authors offer a series of tips. The first is to enact a "go round," in which everyone introduces himself and states what he brings to the meeting. This practice is especially valuable if you've managed to achieve the first principle: "Get the whole system in the room." By listening to their peers, each group member can extend and deepen his knowledge of where the meeting is going.

The next principle offered by the authors is "let people be responsible." This is another one for the micromanagers. It's about holding back and trusting people to find their own way out of the thickets of a meeting gone wrong. Their first bit of advice on this score is to assume people are doing the best they can do at any given time. Don't waste energy trying to guess people's motives or label their behavior. If you go looking for dysfunctional actions – defensiveness, resistance – you're sure to find them everywhere. The authors counsel that a commitment to accepting others as they are creates a sense of community and trust. In general, people do what they are ready to do, when they are ready to do it – not when a meeting moderator decides to crack the whip.

Again, at Mind Tools, we worry that while there's some truth in this, perhaps it's stated in a way that's too extreme. While it's good if people come up with the right conclusions, sometimes managers need to show firmness and leadership when things are going astray.

One fear common among meeting leaders is that participants are harboring hidden agendas. In a characteristic bit of advice, the authors say, essentially: Who cares? They counsel us to wipe this suspicion out of our minds. Few business meetings are about flushing out hidden agendas and bringing dark truths to light. They're about dispersing information and generating actionable ideas. The moderator's task is to keep people focused on those goals, not reveal what people are really thinking but not saying.

In essence, they say, don't disturb the proverbial five hundred pound gorilla in the room, so long as it's not interfering with the meeting's goals.

The next principle is "find common ground." Here, the authors focus on the integration part of differentiation/integration theory. They emphasize that common ground does not equal compromise. No one should be pressured to accept a position they don't hold, for the sake of a false sense of group harmony. Common ground means finding points of actual agreement – and, by extension, identifying points of disagreement.

This process invites people to air out where they really stand on issues, and removes uncertainty and ambiguity. Once common ground has been staked out in a genuine way, action can come swiftly and confidently. But how to get there? The authors offer several useful tricks. First, hold off on problem solving. If disagreements arise, don't rush to reconcile them. Rushing to solve problems too quickly diverts people from discovering what aspirations they hold – and encourages people to accept positions they don't really support and won't follow through on. As for conflicting views, get them out in the open but don't fixate on them. The authors say that in most meetings, people spend 80% of the time hashing out the 20% that people disagree on. They suggest spending 80% of the time on the 80% that people typically do agree on – the common ground.

The next principle is "master the art of subgrouping." This one is about the differentiation part of differentiation/integration theory. Subgrouping is a natural part of group dynamics. When people gather, they gravitate toward group members they see as similar to them, and stereotype people they see as different. This is known as stereotypical subgrouping. The process is silent and subtle, and can derail a meeting.

According to the authors, a meeting leader's task is to move the group from stereotypical subgrouping to functional subgrouping. Functional subgroups form around expressed ideas, opinions, and viewpoints, not preconceived or stereotypical notions. This sort of subgroup is quite useful because it validates people's viewpoints by placing them with allies.

So, while stereotypical subgrouping can lead to division and destructive conflict, functional subgrouping can lead to positive conflict and integrated solutions. How, then, to get there? The first step is differentiation – getting the group members to draw out their assumptions, aspirations, and viewpoints. From there, natural intellectual affinities will form.

Next, the authors shift from principles that govern meeting management to ones that involve personal management within meetings. The first principle here is "make friends with anxiety." The authors argue that human beings learn in a state of crisis. The process of learning is the process of coming face to face with what we don't know: a condition that causes anxiety.

To explain how to make anxiety work for you, the authors invite us to visit what they call the "four rooms of change." The first room is contentment. There, we're satisfied and not much happens. But then some new, unexpected event happens, shattering our peace. We then run to the second room, denial. Again, not much change happens here; we're clinging to a vanished past. When we get tired of this room and accept that things have change, we move into the third room: confusion. What's happening? Everything's different! Here is where anxiety sets in. But we work through it and eventually move into the final room: renewal. And the whole journey was worth it.

The next principle is "get used to projections." This one's not about PowerPoint presentations, but rather about our innate human tendency to project onto others things that originate in ourselves. A quiet person in the meeting is conniving, or bored silly. The guy who talks too much is compensating for his own incompetence. These are projections, our snap interpretations based on little or no evidence.

In a move characteristic of this book, the authors aren't counseling us to overthrow human nature and not project. Rather, they want us merely to be aware that we and everyone else in the meeting is projecting all the time. And when we become aware, it's easier to detach ourselves from the attributes others are projecting onto us – to not take things personally, which could lead to unfruitful emotional confrontations. Awareness also helps us to detach from our projections onto other people, so we can better hear them, and not merely the interpretation we have conjured up for them.

The next principle is "be a dependable authority." This one is mostly for meeting leaders. Any time you take a position of authority, people are going to test your dependability. They're projecting on you past experiences with authority figures. If someone grew up with a tyrant for a parent, they may try to goad you into behaving like a tyrant. Don't give in; again, try to detach from projections. The key here is to keep your calm, take things in stride, and patiently nudge the group to stay on task.

The final principle is "learn to say no so that yes means something." This one is about managing expectations – both about the meeting's scope and about your own role in making it successful. Say corporate wants your next meeting to deliver a knockout marketing plan, even though key decision makers on the marketing team won't be present. Just say no – of course, taking time to explain your position.

Another trap to avoid is being the guy in the meeting who volunteers to pick up all the action items, just to avoid tension and awkward pauses. Again, don't do it. By learning to say no to impossible tasks, you'll establish boundaries and be more effective when you do say yes.

And on that note, the authors bring their book to the sort of snappy close that marks the end of a satisfying meeting. What can we take away from their book? Our action item is simple: Don't just do something. Stand there – and think hard about these ten principles before you enter your next meeting.

However, it seems wise to take some of these principles with a grain of salt. While it's fine and well to get everyone's opinion and try to get them on board, in the business world the team leader often needs to impose order and discipline. People in leadership roles who let a group follow their whims, rather than pursuing what's best for the company, probably won't be leaders for long.

"Don't Just Do Something, Stand There!: Ten Principles for Leading Meetings that Matter" by Marvin Weisbord and Sandra Janoff is published in paperback by Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

That's the end of this episode of Book Insights.