| Can I let you in on a dirty little secret? In my Making Meetings Matter training, I have a whole segment on how to create a meeting agenda (hot tip: use questions instead of bullet points) and how agendas are so important, you should consider declining any meeting without one. In my own business, however, I almost never share an agenda with the staff before we meet. I know. It’s bad. What I actually do is open a running Google Doc entitled Merlin Works Staff Meeting Notes and spend the first five minutes collaboratively creating the agenda. We quickly add topics to the list, take a minute to prioritize, and then we start talking, adding resolutions and action items to the document as we go. This felt intuitively right for our small staff of three, since none of us have full visibility on all business issues in a given week. Plus, like many, we are often going from meeting to meeting and don’t have time to think about or prepare for a meeting until it starts. We need a minute to shift our focus and get comfortable with important topics. This feels more collaborative and less hierarchical. I found echoes of this as I was reading the fabulous book Communication Rx: Transforming Healthcare Through Relationship-Centered Communication by Calvin Chou, MD, PhD and Laura Cooley, PhD. They talk about how at the beginning of a healthcare appointment, after spending a moment to build rapport, the provider should solicit all issues the patient wants to discuss. Instead of diving into rapid fire questions on the first issue mentioned, the provider should note the first item and then ask “And what else?” The medical professional keeps asking this question until all the health issues are on the table. What’s wild is this mirrors an exact quote from a doctor who took my Better Communication Through Improv workshop co-taught with Dr. Rob Milman years ago. She came up to us after the session and said she lived in Chicago previously, loved improv and had taken a class. She said she used the fundamental improv rule “Yes, And” all the time in her practice. She said, “I just ask them what brought them in today. And then they answer. And then I say ‘what else?’ And they say something else. And then I say ‘and what else?’ I keep asking that until they run out of things to say. They think I’m the best doctor in the world,” she laughed.  After all the discussion items are on the table, patient and provider can create a shared agenda. They can prioritize the issues that are most important and establish how things that can’t be addressed today might be handled in a future appointment or through other providers or services. Doctors are notoriously crunched for time, so asking “and what else?” at the beginning of an appointment can feel counterproductive. But research says it actually saves time in the end, among other benefits:
 So improvised agendas are actually best practice in many situations in healthcare and beyond. I literally do this with my family, like when we are planning our weekend. There’s four of us with different things we need to do and want to do. So before a busy weekend, I’ll get out the whiteboard and we’ll create a shared agenda, seeing how the most people can get the most of what they need and want. Plus, then I get to do my favorite thing in the world: check things off lists! Do you use improvised agendas? What works best for you at work and at home? |
What’s Your Agenda: The Merlin Works October 2024 Newsletter
