(Note: This article was prepared for a company learning Intranet published in 2/2010.)

Meetings. Ugh. Everyone dislikes them. Why? The usual answer is that meetings are bad when they are disorganized, lack an agenda, take too long, and conclude without a clearly defined list of action items. Correcting these problems is a wonderful way to run great meetings. The problem is, running a great meeting may be only half the battle. You may also have to think about how you schedule the meeting.

Why does scheduling matter? Because there’s an even deeper reason why people hate even the most well-organized meetings. It has to do with how you spend your workday. If you are involved in the hands-on, brains-on creation of products, then how you spend and conceive of your time is nearly always at odds with those who schedule meetings – usually managers – and how they spend and conceive of time.

You can see the difference in terms of two classes of complaints about meetings: those who complain that there are too many meetings and those who complain that there are any meetings at all. The former are usually managers: people who are usually chiefly responsible for the effective flow of information throughout an organization. The latter are usually creators: people directly involved in producing an organization’s core products.

Managers dislike meetings because their day is one meeting after another. Meetings, meetings, meetings. It’s stressful. You are always on: thinking carefully about what you say and listening carefully to what others are saying. That’s what you’re supposed to do anyway. Even if you aren’t doing it, you know you should. For a manager, the response to a meeting request is: “Not another meeting!? How am I going to juggle it all? Have I scheduled time to breathe?” For a manager, meetings can be slotted into the chunks of time so familiar to any scheduling system.

A creator’s day, on the other hand, is about rubbing together if-then-else statements, pushing pixels across a screen, or massaging out the kinks in a database. This kind of work requires sustained bouts of thinking, puzzling, mind-mapping, and bursts of creative inspiration. Creation occurs in more expansive spaces of half a day, an entire day, or maybe even longer if you’re “in the zone.” When you need sustained bouts of time to concentrate, meetings can be a distraction.

Consider this: Did you ever notice that many meetings are scheduled at mid-morning or mid-afternoon? A 10 a.m. meeting gives people time for last minute preparations, including putting out any fires left smoldering from the previous day. Similar assumptions go into the selection of the 2 p.m. or 3 p.m. meeting, since neither time is too close to lunch or close of business.

For the creator, however, mid-morning and mid-afternoon meetings can be a disaster. If you have a 10 a.m., it’s unlikely you’ll start anything difficult before the meeting. If you’re lucky enough to get into a productive zone, you’ll just have to rip yourself out of it. This is demoralizing, especially if you were on a roll. By the time you’re back at your cube, it’s 11:15 a.m. and there’s not much time to get back into the groove. Soon it’ll be lunch and you’ll only have to rip yourself out of “the zone” once again.

If you’re a manager and you want to make sure you have effective meetings with your team, people whose jobs require big chunks of uninterrupted time, you may want to find out if it’s easier for them to meet at the very start or end of the workday. Meetings can seem like less of an interruption when held at these hours and your producers can still feel they have sustained, quality time to spend on their work.

If you’re a creator, you may not be able to do much about meeting schedules. After all, your managers have to juggle meetings with their boss, other managers, and internal and external customers. A 2 p.m. meeting may be the only time she has available. If that’s the case, since you can’t control how well-planned a meeting is, you can at least help with the execution. Here are a few ways you can help your manager make meetings more effective. It might also help you feel less exasperated by interruptions in your workflow.

1. If the meeting organizer didn’t outline the agenda, ask her to email you an outline of the meeting objectives before the meeting.
2. Once you know what the meeting organizer wants from the meeting, ask yourself what you want from it. Is there a problem that might be resolved at the meeting? Do you have information that needs to get to someone higher up the food chain? Write a short list – at least one, no more than four items – you think need addressing. Review the list and make sure that your action items are compatible with the meeting agenda and the organizer’s goals.
3. During the meeting, take your own personal version of meeting minutes. Taking minutes doesn’t mean transcribing every word. Instead, take a record of the decisions that are made (or tabled), the key points gleaned from an information report, and any action items assigned to meeting attendees.
4. If the meeting organizer doesn’t recap the action items and/or take aways for the meeting, ask if she could do so before the meeting adjourns. At the very least, make sure that you know what is expected of you and when it’s due.
5. If you are tasked with work, always summarize your understanding of what you’ve been asked to do by sending an email to the meeting organizer and anyone else who may be depending on your work. Do this right after the meeting. That way, you’ll have a chance to clear up miscommunications early on.

If you run meetings, here are some great resources for helping you put together a well-run meeting:

How to Run an Effective Meeting by Cyrus Farivar, published April 9, 2007

Running More Productive Meetings by Merlin Mann, published February 21, 2006

How to Run a Meeting by Michael Lopp, published August 19, 2010