"The key to keeping your balance is knowing when you've lost it."

Anonymous

There are literally hundreds of reasons for meetings to fail. From poor leadership, lack of an agenda, undefined purpose and dominating participants, it is no wonder that many people dread going to meetings. If you step back for a moment and take a look at the bigger picture, you will realize that meetings may have a TP problem. No, I am not referring to toilet paper, but rather, Task/Process problems. Let me explain. A meeting has two key components that must stay in balance....the "what" and the "how". The "what" refers to what the meeting is trying to accomplish and the "how" refers to the way it goes about accomplishing the "what". In the diagram below I illustrate this need for balance:

     TASK                                                   PROCESS

                                    What                                                    How

                                    Results                                                 Relationships

                                    Ends                                                    Means

                                    Procedures                                          Atmosphere

                                    Hard                                                    Soft

                                    Gasoline                                              Oil

                                    Think                                                   Feel

                                    Overt                                                   Covert

When a meeting is focused too much on the Task, then its only concern is the results, ends, the hard data, thinking, procedures, gasoline to make the engine (purpose of meeting) run. Many of the components of a Task meeting are obvious and therefore overt. And, if a meeting is focused too much on the Process, then its only concern is the relationships of participants, the means without the end, the atmosphere, feeling versus thinking and the oil which keeps the engine from having friction. Many of these process components are hidden or less obvious and so they seem covert

When a meeting is mainly focused on Task, it will go very quickly because usually a few people are making all the decisions. If a meeting is dragging on without results, it may be due to someone trying to get everyone to agree on everything all the time. Task/Process needs each other for success.

So, what should you do if you believe your meetings are out of balance? I recommend a process check be conducted at the end of your meeting to help identify where the imbalance is occurring. An example of a process check would be the following:

Using a scale of 1 being "not at all" and 5 being "completely", rank the following items:

1. To what extent were objectives of the meeting clearly stated?
2. To what extent was the knowledge of participants utilized?
3. To what extent was decision making shared by participants?
4. To what extent did people trust and level with each other?
5. To what extent were all participants actively involved in the meeting

Allow enough time at the end of your meeting to complete the process check and learn from the responses so your next meeting is more in balance.

Question for You:

Do you dread going to meetings or leading meetings? Do your meetings seem to be out- of- balance by making decisions too quickly or trying to make everyone reach consensus on everything?

Answer for You:

It is in your best interest as a participant or leader of your next meeting to find a way for the meeting to have balance. By observing the Task/Process words listed above in your next meeting, you will have a sense of where the imbalance may be occurring. Another great tool to use to confirm your intuition would be a process check like the one illustrated above.