Q Tips: 1. No-one turns up to my meetings!

I often hear that healthcare staff can’t get involved in improvement – or can’t get other people involved in improvement – because of meetings. 

If the person I’m speaking to is the one running the meetings then it’s the other b*gg*rs who just won’t turn up.  They do everything right and it’s definitely not their fault.

If the person I’m speaking to is the one who’s supposed to turn up to the meeting then it’s the b*gg*rs who organise them who just don’t appreciate that healthcare is not about meetings.  They are very important and they have patients to see or deadlines to meet.  No meeting ever saved a life or delivered a target.

They’re probably both right.

But what neither of them tend to do is say “hey!  I know.  This approach to getting us all together to talk about things just isn’t working.  Why don’t we try something different instead?”

Here’s my top ten tips on how to maximise the chances of having a productive meeting with the people you want to meet – even when they don’t really want to meet with you.

1. Go to them.  It’s much harder to escape the unwanted guest/project manager/improvement advisor etc when you’re standing in their office.
2. Loiter relentlessly.  They can’t avoid you when you’re standing outside their office door and they have to pass you in order to hide in their office.
3. Set up meetings in the clinical area/ management offices.  They can’t be ‘busy in clinic’ if you’re in clinic watching them.
4. Make it snappy.  Aim for 10 minutes max – be focussed and try to get them to do as much talking as possible.  And it’s hard to say you haven’t got time for 10 minutes.  You could even take that 10 minutes in clinic when a patient DNAs or a when a doctor is late for a management meeting.
5. Stand up.  If you never sit down no-one can relax into long pontifications on any hobby-horse subjects that avoid the need to talk about that niggly improvement you want to make.  (Believe me, they are no more interested in your improvement hobby-horses either.)
6. Demonstrate how what you want will help them meet their objectives.  In the first minute.  The classic “what’s in it for me”.  And if you can’t work out what this is then think very carefully about whether you really should be meeting them yet.
7. Be clear about what they can do to help and by when.  Until you’ve got commitment and engagement make the tasks small and quick and easy.  Also demonstrate how you are also doing your (lion’s) share.  Don’t use the whiny ‘it’s not fair voice’.
8. Thank them.  Endlessly.  Effusively.  Appreciate them taking the time, giving the effort, making a valuable contribution.  Even if it’s a future state you’re thanking them for.
9. If you do get chance to schedule a meet then be on-time every time.  They only need one excuse to say you didn’t turn up and you’ll never see them again.
10. Credit them to others – especially to those whose opinion they care about.