Last week’s advice around priming meetings via pre-reads seems to have ruffled some feathers, and to slightly paraphrase a response that captures it well:
“definitely a good habit. That said, more often than not, senior stakeholders don't read the material… have you had any luck in managing that?”
I would love to hear from you: what strategies do you employ to make sure pre-reads get read? Leave your comments and thoughts below.
my take: it’s ~50% org culture (do the most senior leaders come prepared > mid management better be prepared) and ~50% running a tight agenda.
E.g. if reviewing quarterly sales performance
1. I would have most metrics as pre read, and the actual meeting would be to discuss anything missing targets, deep dives into specific opportunities etc.
2. if during the call/meeting there are requests to go over pre read materials, I would tell the stakeholder we can revisit the preread over email, but in the interest of time let’s focus on the discussion topic.
I’ll send a reminder before the meeting with the materials attached again. Set expectations that can be stomached, like the meeting will focus on X slides (this needs to be no more than 5) and the rest are for background reading to support decision making. I think there’s something here to be said about information presentation too.
Finally, have back up plans A to C. Always anticipate there will be people who still come unprepared despite the mammoth staging effort. Have a meeting plan - clear structure, know the decisions you need, and clear follow ups in place - so the meeting is driven in a productive manner.
Choose your battles too. If culture dictates that most people don’t read anyway, go light on pre-meeting staging. Shift gears to focus on meeting execution and building stakeholder accountability.
Post guiding questions (of which the context will can be found in the pre-reads) which will be addressed in the meeting.
And yes, fully agree that knowing your audience's "appetite" for pre-reads is important!
Carrot and stick - activate the carrot, if they all come prepared, we can shave off valuable time for everyone involved
pre-wiring via questions is a great idea. What types of questions do you find work best?
my take: it’s ~50% org culture (do the most senior leaders come prepared > mid management better be prepared) and ~50% running a tight agenda.
E.g. if reviewing quarterly sales performance
1. I would have most metrics as pre read, and the actual meeting would be to discuss anything missing targets, deep dives into specific opportunities etc.
2. if during the call/meeting there are requests to go over pre read materials, I would tell the stakeholder we can revisit the preread over email, but in the interest of time let’s focus on the discussion topic.
I’ll send a reminder before the meeting with the materials attached again. Set expectations that can be stomached, like the meeting will focus on X slides (this needs to be no more than 5) and the rest are for background reading to support decision making. I think there’s something here to be said about information presentation too.
Finally, have back up plans A to C. Always anticipate there will be people who still come unprepared despite the mammoth staging effort. Have a meeting plan - clear structure, know the decisions you need, and clear follow ups in place - so the meeting is driven in a productive manner.
Choose your battles too. If culture dictates that most people don’t read anyway, go light on pre-meeting staging. Shift gears to focus on meeting execution and building stakeholder accountability.