How to Make Meetings Matter

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Sounds disastrous, right? The D-School team couldn't have asked for anything better. "The meeting was so broken," says Sutton. "Everyone was remarkably unenthusiastic. Very few people talked. They just listened to these announcements by Perry and his executive team." Through their observations and follow-up interviews with employees, it became clear that the meeting—from its top-down format to its chairless location—was sending a clear message to the staff: We're so busy dealing with important organizational issues that we don't have time for you.

Suffice it to say this was not what Klebahn had intended. Two weeks after the class had observed the meeting, Klebahn and his management team met with the students to hear their proposed solutions, most of which focused on giving employees more control and a greater sense of ownership of the meeting.

IMPORTANT CHANGES

Klebahn was quick to act on the ideas. Perhaps the single most important change he made was to delegate the planning and the running of the meeting to his office manager, Keri Sedor. As a practical matter, this allowed him to stay focused on big-picture issues, but it also shifted the dynamic of the gathering. Because Sedor is closer to the staff than members of the executive team, she's better able to solicit ideas or tap into issues that need airing. The Sedor-run meetings are also more collaborative, in part because employees feel comfortable asking her questions.

Some of the changes Klebahn and team made were small. They moved the gathering from the kitchen area to the lobby where there was more seating. They shifted from a weekly 30-minute format on Wednesday at 11 a.m. to a biweekly 90-minute gathering at 3:30, simply because that worked better for most people. Others were more involved. A bulletin board in the kitchen was turned into a sort of ongoing conversation about issues and ideas to be discussed. And to introduce some fun, at each meeting a randomly selected employee gets a custom bag, designed to reflect his or her personal interests or hobbies. "This ritual reinforces that we make stuff, that we're a creative company, that we care about individuals," says Klebahn. "It also gets lots of laughs."

For a complete list of the solutions the D-School team developed for Timbuk2, click here. The same principles will help any CEO or team leader improve—and probably rethink—their meetings. As Klebahn says: "It's radically changed our focus of what the meeting is doing. It's not broadcasting information. It's building a tribe."

Jessie Scanlon is the senior writer for Innovation & Design on BusinessWeek.com.