Larry Page knows a thing or two about how to run a productive meeting.
I know that there is a lot of mystique surrounding Google. I have heard that it is a great place to work and that they have all kinds of unique benefits for working there. I am confident that it probably is a great place to work full of all kinds of very creative and intelligent people. Heading up those intelligent and creative people is a gentleman by the name of Larry Page. I found an article this week in a publication called The Business Insider on Mr. Page’s approach to meetings. I have captured the main points from that article below, but if you would like to read the full article, click here.
Larry Page co founded Google with Sergey Brin. They both were co-presidents and ran the company until 2001 when they hired Eric Schmidt to be the CEO. Page replaced Schmidt as CEO last year. I am sure that there is in interesting story about all of this, but I just wanted to give you a little background on the man before I shared with you what I think is some great advice from Mr. Page.
Google has over 30,000 employees, so when Mr. Page took over last year one of his first communications to his very large team was to give them some advice on how to run their meetings. There were four basic points to his advice which I will share below:
- A decision maker must be present – I have sat in many meetings where no one in the room had the authority to make the decision that needed to be made, yet we talked through all of the options anyway. Determine what problem you are trying to solve before inviting anyone to you meeting. If there is no problem, then don’t have a meeting. If there is a problem to be solved, invite the people that are likely to come up with the most intelligent solutions, but also make sure that you have a decision maker there. With no decision maker present at your meeting, you end up having the same meeting twice. Whatever decision you make at the first meeting, has to be eventually be run by the decision maker who will likely want to know what the other option were. Having the same meeting twice is grossly inefficient, so I think this is a pretty good rule.
- Ten Person Limit – This one is pretty straight forward. If you have more than ten people involved, then you likely not going to accomplish anything. I couldn’t agree more. I honestly think that the number is closer to five, but I will assume Mr. Page has situations that require a few more people than my little issues do. Too many people leads to too much talking and too little action.
- Everyone Speaks – Everyone at the meeting should have input. If they don’t have input then they should not be in the meeting. I have worked with a lot of people in my career that I truly believe just spend their days going to meetings and not offering any input. If you are regularly attending meetings and not offering any input then I seriously have to question your value to the company. If I can’t immediately see the value that I will add to meeting then I don’t attend. I have other things I could be working on that will likely provide a greater benefit to the company. If I do attend a meeting, you can be assured that you will get to hear my voice. I also suggest trying to speak early in a meeting especially when the group is trying to solve a problem. I think speaking early makes you appear to be more credible. If you speak right up, then I think people assume you know what you are talking about.
- Don’t Wait- Major decisions should not have to wait until you can find a free time slot on eight different schedules. If the decision needs be made, then call an impromptu meeting. Make sure that you have a decision maker in the room, but don’t’ delay. I think this is a rule that is broken repeatedly in large corporations every day. This is why large organizations are so slow to react. Start ups do not have this problem because they do not have the bureaucracy that large companies do.
Follow these four rules and you can manage your team like a start up regardless of how large your organization is. If Google can follow these rules with 30,000 employees, then I am confident that I can pull this off.
Do you have a fifth rule that should be added for running meetings like a start up company?
Related articles
- How Larry Page Changed Meetings At Google After Taking Over Last Spring (GOOG) (businessinsider.com)
I applied your four rules, in my head, to our staff meetings. I think that you’re absolutely right in that everyone needs to speak. A lot of times we have the “meeting mutes” but then complain or don’t follow through afterwards.
A good facilitator will help to pull them out of their shells, but I think we all have a personal obligation to speak up. Love your blog!
Great post, I am going to use your rules at my office meeting this week. Sometimes it is difficult to get everyone to give input without asking direct questions that may make them feel put on the spot. I will have to think of ways to pull them into the dicussion without making them feel pressured. Any ideas?
Tell them up front that the meeting will not conclude until everyone has had some input. That way they can choose when to jump in. It still gives them a little control.
Your posts are full of genuine suggestions. I am sure readers will benefit from it.
In my posts, and I think you have seen some, I focus on the negative behaviour at work, hopefully to get people to see it as a mirror and reform, if required.
One such post on meetings is :
http://darkofficehumour.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/very-important-person-conducts-a-meeting/
I have been to your site several times and I appreciate the angle that you write from.