Humans have developed tools to extend their power.  Physical tools like hammers or knives extend the handler’s capabilities.  Likewise, the tool of enumerating time, and giving each chunk a dedicated, shareable name, enables us to connect with people multiple times per day with relative ease.

This is the power extension of “scheduling a meeting”.

And then there are recurring meetings. Gifts to my future self reminding me of what is important, what and who I need to pay attention to. Recurring meetings create a routine around the parts in life that need constant refinement, where lasting growth is necessary. 

If you want to learn a new instrument, and you play just 10 minutes every day for a year, it is about the same commitment as a one-week intensive training.  But what do you think makes you a better player? Which strategy gives you more chances to notice things, to develop your own style? Yes, humans thrive with routines.  Repetition with recurring breaks for noticing lead us to mastery.

Unless the activities become disconnected from our heart. When we stop noticing.

Then the tool can get in charge of you:  All the recurring meetings that are splattered over your calendar suddenly are just there, because you “have to” attend them.  Their true meaning becomes hidden behind a curtain of unconditional commitment fed by the human desire to improve and gain safety through routine and recurring connections.

The agile manifesto started with the claim that “Individuals and interactions are more important than tools and processes”, but nowadays, agile development is more often associated with the process of specific regular meetings over a two week cycle.  It is a “best practice”, but is it the best practice for you and your team? It is so easy to forget.

To really know, you have to step behind the curtain sometimes, and really find out what is important to you.

How do you feel before, during and after your meetings?  What do you notice in others?  Do you sense engagement and team growth with lots of contributions of the kind “Here I am ready to help and collaborate”, or do you notice more fear and soothing egos, with lots of contributions of the kind: “Look what I did.  This is why you pay me a salary.” 

Are you an engaged and active listener, or is your mind wandering. Or maybe you are working on something else, because you want to be somewhere else?

Only if you pay attention will you connect with the true meaning of the meetings that your calendar presents you with.

If you do, magic can happen:  You may find the ability to let go of meetings, some meetings might get shorter, you may find the ability to actually get to know your team.  You will probably feel less stressed, because suddenly you are in charge of your calendar, not the other way round.  And being in charge doesn’t have to equate to cancelling all your meetings.  You may notice that meetings are purposeful or even necessary.  But to achieve that purpose you needed to shift internally, reminding yourself of the purpose.

Reflections of the Day

• Make a list of all the meetings that you created, you may want to also include meetings that you accepted invitations for. Remember what you noticed within yourself during these meetings, positive as well as negative.  
• Sort the meetings by the strength of your reaction, and also by “ease of making or requesting changes”.
• Spend some time with the meetings on top of those lists:
  • Do you want to make changes?  What ideas are coming up?  Are they internal changes, or does the meeting need to change?

With care,

Martin