So you can’t really identify an introvert at a party. An introvert may appear outgoing and gregarious. The difference is discovered after the party is over. While the extrovert feels energized, the introvert wants to retreat into a cave to recharge.

Approximately 25% of people are predominantly introverted.

How do you think introverts feel about meetings? They find meetings unpleasant. They may even hate them.

Introverts prefer working things out on their own before communicating with others. Extroverts like bouncing ideas off others first and are more likely to use meetings as a way of thinking through an issue.

As a consequence, introverts often feel that extroverts don’t do their homework. Introverts come to a meeting prepared with ideas to share and discuss. Extroverts enter the room expecting to come to those ideas together. Showing up to a meeting unprepared is a waste of your team’s time and your own.

If you want to get more from your team—especially the introverts—clarify the meeting’s objective and agenda in advance. Allow team members time to think about the issue, to do their homework, and formulate ideas.

Meetings intrinsically support extroverts. Build your meetings around the needs of introverts. You’ll promote greater collaboration, facilitate better brainstorming, and generate better solutions.

Related posts:

1. Introversion versus Extroversion
2. Conducting Effective Meetings
3. Excessive Meetings = Ineffective Organization

But as Peter Drucker noted, an abundance of meetings is a sign of a diseased organization. If you conduct effective meetings, they will become shorter and less frequent.

Here are a few guidelines for conducting effective meetings:

• Always clarify the objective of the meeting before you begin. Every meeting should have purposeful direction.
• Not all meetings are created equal. Different issues require different time constraints and team members. Don’t block off an hour for something that can be knocked off in ten minutes.
• Have a meeting moderator that guides the discussion toward the desired end goal.
• Make meeting preparation a requirement. When participates come unprepared to a meeting they waste your time and theirs.
• Use de Bono’s Six Thinking Hat method as an effective way to take individual personalities out of the equation, keep meetings running smoothly, and generate more ideas.
• Read Aaron Shield’s Creativity in the Workplace and learn how to facilitate powerful brainstorming sessions with your team. (It’s free and available on audio and pdf.)

Conducting more effective meetings will give you more time to be effective in your job—more time to focus on the needs of your customers.

Related posts:

1. Introverts and Meetings
2. Excessive Meetings = Ineffective Organization
3. Seven Qualities of an Effective Coach

Some executives believe back-to-back meetings define the modern business world. But as Drucker explains, “Meetings are by definition a concession to deficient organization. For one either meets or one works. One cannot do both at the same time.”

Some executives are forced to work on weekends to get their “real work” accomplished.

“As a rule, meetings should never be allowed to become the main demand on an executive’s time. Too many meetings always bespeak poor structure of jobs and the wrong organizational components,” says Drucker.

Meetings are obviously necessary because different people are responsible for different roles and job functions. They must cooperate and share information to get specific things done.

But if you’re spending most of your work week in meetings, how are you supposed to contribute to the organization and produce results?

Make meetings the exception, not the rule. Value the results your organization achieves, not the time spent discussing them.

Related posts:

1. Conducting Effective Meetings
2. Five Habits of the Effective Executive
3. Introverts and Meetings

People refuse to see other perspectives and fail to open themselves up to a diverse range of options. Without openness, you can’t achieve shared understanding.

What can we do to overcome these challenges?

Realize there are different ways of interpreting and processing information. Develop a system of communication that facilitates shared understanding and your meetings will be more productive.

Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hat method helps facilitate more productive group meetings through utilizing different perspectives, but ensuring that everyone is aligned to only one perspective at a time.

Each hat represents a specific perspective. Each team member wears each hat in turn.  For example, “Okay, let’s put on our White Hats. Jim, you’re up first.”

White Hat: The neutral White Hat offers objective facts and figures and is used in the beginning of a meeting to establish relevant facts and information about the issue at hand.

Red Hat: The emotional and intuitive Red Hat is used to get people’s gut reactions to an idea or when you want the team to express their emotions freely.

Black Hat: The cautious Black Hat is used when you want to get the critical viewpoint of an idea or situation. The “devil’s advocate” hat helps decrease the chances of making a poor decision.

Yellow Hat: The sunny and positive Yellow Hat helps identify the value of ideas and plans. The Yellow Hat helps counterbalance the judgmental thinking of Black Hat.

Green Hat: The creative Green Hat comes on when you want to generate fresh ideas and new directions. This is a very powerful hat that each player needs to wear.

Blue Hat: The organizing Blue Hat sets objectives, outlines the situation, and defines the problem in the beginning of the meeting and returns at the end to summarize and draw conclusions.

Remember, these six hats represent perspectives, not people or personalities. Every person in a meeting must be able to wear each hat in turn. See de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats for further explanation.

Related posts:

1. Learn to Value Ideas
2. When to Share Your Ideas
3. Fear versus Caution