Chapter 15 - Embedding the change and overcoming resistance

Actions – identify and deal with any specific objections to this new way of working

Target – maintain your improvement, overcome resistance to change and pressure to fall back into attending unnecessary and badly run meetings

If you have followed the actions and met your targets from the previous chapters, you have now cut out unnecessary topics and participants, planned your meetings using OPPT, and are running significantly fewer, better face-to-face and virtual meetings.

Some of this is simply inertia. It is hard and takes energy to change established routines and habits. Other aspects of resistance emerge because meetings have meaning beyond just performing a task or reaching a decision.

•	People can respond personally or feel upset if you do not attend their meetings or invite them to yours – even if it is for good reasons

•	Individuals who are used to regular meetings may feel a loss of involvement or community – even though they added nothing to the conduct of the meeting and probably used to complain about it being boring

•	Your corporate culture may encourage regular meetings and consensus decision-making – even where they do not add value

It is also not enough to improve meetings “once and for all”; circumstances and meeting members change, so we need to embed the habit of continuous improvement in our meeting practices to ensure our meetings will evolve and improve over time.

The series of actions in this book were designed around well-researched change management principles to keep each step simple and to focus on changing one thing at a time. It is critical to embed each of these steps into your habitual way of working, to do it without thinking rather than to have to consciously plan it each time.

In this chapter, we will focus on some of the common signs of resistance to change and what to do about them by:

It can be uncomfortable and tiring to do things differently. It is much easier to continue doing things the same way as it doesn’t require thought or effort. Overcoming this inertia to make a change in the first place can be difficult.

In meetings, however, we have a compelling business case and a strong personal motivation in cutting out unnecessary and boring meetings. By making this explicit we can build the energy for change. We meet very few people who are satisfied with the number or the conduct of their meetings.

The lure of saving a day a week spent in unnecessary and frustrating meetings gives a strong impetus to change.

That’s why we start the campaign by building the business case for change, and why we break the campaign down into a series of simple actions and targets that you can implement one at a time. If you try to make many changes all at once, each of them is less likely to be achieved.

It is also why we encourage you to be explicit and discuss what you are doing with your meeting participants. If people understand the process and buy into the outcomes from the start, they are much more likely to implement the change.

If we can embed these new practices into our way of working, then inertia works in our favor by making sure we continue to apply them forever.

Popular self-help books suggest it takes 28 days to change a habit, but academic research shows wide variations depending on your personality and the type of habit you are trying to change. It may take you months to embed new behaviors, so you need to concentrate until they become second nature.

There may also be challenges with your corporate culture: assumptions about involvement, consensus, and teamwork may lead you to involve more people than are strictly necessary. It can be tough to make a major change that is not consistent with your culture. If this is your problem, then you might ask someone in the part of your organization that is responsible for organizational change or organization development for support, or contact Global Integration to discuss how we can support this change initiative. You can contact us at meetings@global-integration.com

You may need support from your senior leaders and active modelling of the change from role models in your business to really make it stick at scale across the organization.

However, please do not use this as an excuse for not doing something yourself! You can start by improving your own meetings and use this to demonstrate the opportunity to your colleagues.

Link the principles from this book to trigger events in your daily work, so that you establish new habits. For example, when you receive a meeting invitation, think No outcomes, no meeting; do not accept without thinking.

If you are sitting in a meeting and it lacks relevance, turn to the meeting leader and ask, “Is this spaghetti?”

Use the meeting planner to design in the principle “if there is no outcome or participation, we do not need a meeting.” Decline to attend meetings that are not planned this way.

If you get everyone in your team or regular meeting a copy of this book and systematically work together through the chapters, then they will understand what you are trying to achieve. You can then can hold each other to account for maintaining the standards. Social pressure is an important element of changing habits.

It may be worth revisiting some of the chapters that have been particularly challenging or running communication campaigns around particular issues. For example, try running a “Say no to meetings month” with your team from time to time.

If this approach to meetings has worked for you, try to spread it to your colleagues. It is hard to make a significant cultural change on your own. The more widely shared and applied the ideas are throughout your organization, the easier it will be for you to continue to run your meetings this way.

If you have a good result personally with this approach, just imagine what it would mean if these practices were rolled out to your whole organization.

Here are a few of the reasons that people have given us for resisting a reduction in meetings, and some ideas about how to overcome them.

“People complained about our meetings then complained about me cancelling them. I think people just got used to how bad they were and could not see an alternative way to feel involved. Now we have a lot more one-to-ones and informal lunch gatherings, it seems to work.”

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We have terrible meetings but the by-products are useful: when we cancel meetings, or ask participants not to attend, they may agree that the meeting was not useful, but feel they are missing some of the positive by-products by not attending. People often attend meetings to improve their visibility or build their network, even if the content is not relevant

The solution to this is to work directly on the by-products. Networking is useful and visibility is important in most organizations but sitting bored in irrelevant meetings is not a suitable process for improving either of them. If people need networking organize open days, social events, or “meet and greets” where people can expand their network and meet new people.

You can improve visibility by arranging lunches with senior managers or by identifying relevant meetings that individuals can attend. Visibility is not a good reason to continue to attend unnecessary meetings.

•	We value involvement or community: if meeting leaders cancel regular team meetings where the topics are mainly one-to-one, or of limited relevance, they often experience a backlash from team members who claim to feel a lack of “involvement” or belonging

This is a valid objection. People do like to know what’s going on and have a chance to meet to maintain a sense of community and relationships. If this is the real objective of your meeting, it may be better to organize a lunch conversation or evening social event. If you do have a meeting, then it should focus on common learning, celebrating success and socializing, rather than on the presentations and information-giving that are usually the focus of activity-based meetings.

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I like to know what is going on: in any meeting or team, you will often find one or more individuals who have a high tolerance and desire for information. They like to know what’s going on and think it is a good use of their time to be copied on every email and to attend every meeting. This can be a sign of insecurity or it may just be a historical expectation based on how things have been done in the past

In today’s increasingly connected organization it is not possible and perhaps not even desirable to keep in touch with everything. Have a conversation with individuals who want too much information about a realistic expectation of how much involvement you and they can afford.

Be careful not to run your meetings at the level that satisfies these few “information junkies” and sends everyone else to sleep.

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You do not come to my meetings, you hate me: some people react personally if you do not attend their meetings, even if they aren’t relevant. Many see it as an indication of disloyalty or dislike or they may think it undervalues their contribution. If these are senior managers this can be a serious problem

It could be helpful to be able to share your learning from this book with them and perhaps get them a copy of their own. If they understand the purpose and the process they are less likely to take it personally.

You should also take care to frame your actions as part of a deliberate intent to improve ways of working and be more effective.

Trigger an action

If you are experiencing resistance to reducing the number or improving the quality of your meetings, take some time to consider why this is and what you can do about it.

Discuss this with your team or at your next meeting

•	If resistance emerges, be explicit about it – discuss it and use the information in this book to help defuse the resistance

•	Brief your meeting or team members on how to communicate what you are doing so others will understand the reasons for your actions. This helps prevent misunderstandings or misinterpretations

•	Encourage the resisters to read this book so they are exposed to the same ideas