RUTHFULLY YOURS

SOME GREAT TIPS FROM DONALD RUMSFELD

Posted By Ruth King on May 12th, 2013

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At their worst, meetings can be both useless and mind-numbing. It calls to mind an observation made in that endless font of wise management advice, the comic strip Dilbert: “There is no specific agenda for this meeting. As usual, we’ll just make unrelated emotional statements about things which bother us.”

David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images

Colin Powell, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld in the White House, Jan. 14, 2002.

Not every meeting has to be a source of dread. If you think about it, a meeting’s function is to pool an organization’s collective wisdom and knowledge in one room, making it easier for a manager to learn what his team knows that he doesn’t, and to provide guidance to all of those involved in one place at one time. Well-managed meetings can be valuable—indeed, indispensable.

The first consideration for meetings is whether to call one at all. The default tendency in any bureaucracy, especially in government, is to substitute discussion for decision-making. If you are the leader of an organization and call a meeting, make sure you have something to communicate or need to learn in a group setting. If the meeting is to be purely informational, without much back and forth, that information could probably be as easily relayed in a memo or email. One of the reasons President Nixon preferred to have important proposals put in writing was to ensure that a meeting’s outcome would not be unduly affected by whoever had the more assertive voice.

Second, when you decide to hold a meeting, it is important to avoid meandering sessions. When I moved into my first executive position in government in 1969, I had a stand-up desk. I use it to this day. Aside from the more recently heralded health benefits, standing up while working tends to be an incentive for those who come in for a discussion to say what they need to say, and not linger. I want folks to be comfortable in my office—just not too comfortable.

Third, pay close attention to who is invited and, for goodness’ sake, avoid making meetings so large that it feels you should have rented an amphitheater. During my last tour as secretary of defense, I found it not uncommon to walk into meetings in the White House Situation Room and see more than a dozen people packed in. In previous administrations, a single note-taker sufficed. Who knows exactly how many damaging leaks may have resulted from Hollywood-size entourages sitting in on sensitive high-level sessions.

Fourth, start and end meetings on time. Consider how much time is wasted by starting a meeting 15 minutes late. If 20 people are in attendance, that means that cumulatively you will have wasted five hours of time that could have been spent on something productive.

Fifth, encourage others to give their views, even if it may ruffle some feathers. “Stay in your lane” is not my favorite phrase. Usually it is deployed by those who don’t like other people commenting on their activities. An organization with impenetrable silos is not benefiting from the brains of its people. In meetings, endeavor to foster a culture in which people can comment on anything as long as their comments are relevant and constructive.

Sixth, as the saying goes, “Nothing betrays imbecility so much as insensitivity to it.” During meetings, I confess to being less than patient with folks who bring up irrelevant information or are ill-prepared. I also tend to lack patience with PowerPoint presentations that convey obvious information or slides with grammatical errors and that lack page numbers.

There were occasions when I abruptly ended a meeting in progress and advised the participants that we would reconvene when everyone had had time to fully prepare. The response was usually surprised looks all around. In my experience some leaders don’t end meetings when it’s clear they’ve become a waste of time. Instead they sit there and let the meeting experience a slow, painful death.

Seventh, keep in mind that when new ideas are broached in a meeting, there is often an instinctive and immediate opposition. Large bureaucracies can be masterful at creating an insular and self-serving culture in which people reinforce each other and become captive to what becomes the conventional wisdom. Meetings are a good place to discover whether an organization might be suffering from groupthink. If everyone in the room seems convinced of the brilliance of an idea, it may be a sign that the organization would benefit from more dissent and debate.

Finally, when ending a meeting, make a practice of summarizing the salient points and take-aways, making sure that all participants know precisely what actions you intend to be taken and by whom. I’ve found it can also be helpful to offer a last opportunity for anyone in the room to speak up by my asking, “Is there anything else?” or “What have we missed?” There often is something important that someone was thinking of saying and never found the opportunity for.

Hopefully, when a meeting does end, it has been valuable enough that people look forward to the next one. But then again, that’s probably too much to ask.

—Adapted from “Rumsfeld’s Rules: Leadership Lessons in Business, Politics, War and Life,” which will be published Tuesday by Broadside Books. Copyright © 2013 by Donald Rumsfeld. Mr. Rumsfeld served as U.S. secretary of defense from 1975 to 1977 and from 2001 to 2006, and as the chief executive officer of two Fortune 500 companies.

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