An admiral way of running a meeting

Ted Janusz offers a simple and efficient way to make the most of your practice meetings and get results

A radical way of running a meeting
So, what can you do about it? Consider the method of Admiral Hyman Rickover, the father of the United States nuclear navy. Please pardon the pun, but when it came to running a meeting, Rickover ran a tight ship.
First of all, the admiral would find out ahead of time what his people wanted to talk about. Then he would complete the first two columns of the spreadsheet, as illustrated on the right.

I used to work for an organization for which the first word in its name was “Sterling.” We had a joke that everybody in the organization ran on “Sterling time.” This meant that if a meeting was scheduled for 9 am, people would begin filing in at, oh, about 15 or 20 minutes after. (And you can now see how expensive that was for the organization!)
Not so with a Rickover meeting. First, the admiral assigned a timekeeper to keep the meeting on track. The timekeeper would begin the meeting promptly at the assigned time. Then the attendees would begin to discuss “Item A” from the spreadsheet. (The actual spreadsheet would have the name of the topic, rather than the letter “A” that I have placed on the example here.)

At precisely 9:10 am, those in attendance would take a vote. As you can see, “Item A” passed. LM was assigned responsibility for that item with a deliverable deadline date of June 1.

One of the biggest challenges that we had with meetings at the Sterling company is that everybody might agree that an item should be accomplished, but rarely would someone be held accountable with a specific deadline date.  

Then the group would begin to discuss “Item B.” At precisely 9:25 am, Rickover’s team members would take a vote. In this case, Item B was turned down. Therefore, no one was assigned responsibility for the item, and there was no deliverable deadline date.

An interesting thing happened while discussing “Item C.” The group decided that they had not allowed sufficient time to discuss it adequately. Rather than the meeting going on, and on, and on, the group decided to withhold making a decision, being sure to allot enough time to discuss the topic adequately at the next meeting.

At precisely 9:40 am, the group began to discuss “Item D.” At 9:50, they took a vote. This item passed, and TB was assigned responsibility with a deliverable deadline date of July 15.

(I had a participant in one of my seminars who actually attended Admiral Rickover’s meetings. He told me: “You made sure that you showed up for these meetings, and on time, or else you would be assigned responsibility for those tasks nobody else wanted!”)

At precisely 9:50 am, the group began to discuss “Item E,” their fifth topic of the meeting. At the top of the hour, they took a vote. In the vote, Item E failed; therefore no one was assigned responsibility, and there was no deliverable deadline date.

Rickover would then cross out the word Agenda at the top of the spreadsheet, making the spreadsheet the meeting’s Minutes. He would scrawl a large “R” over the top of the sheet, thereby giving the meeting minutes his approval. Next,

Rickover would hand the sheet to his assistant, who would write the date, time, and location of the next meeting. The assistant would make copies and distribute a copy to each attendee, so that they would have a record of what was discussed and their individual responsibilities.

Why did his followers love to come to an Admiral Rickover meeting?

Everybody was getting the same information at the same time—not having to hear the news through the grapevine. They knew that they would be in and out of the meeting on time—allowing them to schedule time for the rest of their day. They need not fret that they would be half an hour or an hour late for their next meeting.

Everybody’s time was respected. If you were invited to the meeting as the subject matter expert for “Item D,” you could count on arriving at the meeting at 9:40 am and being out of the meeting by 9:50 am.

With the pressure of a timed agenda, the attendees stayed more focused, and the reward was that more got done in less time. They also spent less money on doughnuts for the meetings, so everyone was trimmer and healthier!
Might this be a better way to run staff meetings at your practice?

Ted Janusz is a professional speaker, author, and marketing consultant. He has presented nearly 500 full-day seminars on a variety of managerial topics. Visit his website at www.januspresentations.com.