Many of our difficulties in meetings are driven by uncertainty and its associated risk. At the same time, a significant portion of our mismanagement of risk is due to poor meetings. If you chair meetings then you are in the best position to make positive changes, but if not there is still a lot you can do.

People who are not chairing meetings can still make a positive difference to the way meetings are run, according to a study published in 2013.

It focused on what the researchers call ‘procedural’ contributions. Examples of positive procedural contributions are: “all right, back to the topic”, “so essentially you’re saying that…”, “let’s talk about this first”, “should I write that down?” and “that’s the most important issue we’re facing”.

Nale Lehmann-Willenbrock, Joseph Allen and Simone Kauffeld recorded and painstakingly coded 59 team meetings at 19 organisations. And the study produced more than just correlations; the exact sequence of contributions was studied to see what happened immediately after positive procedural contributions. This analysis showed that positive procedural contributions increased the level of productive contributions immediately after and reduced the level of dysfunctional contributions.

As an added bonus, meetings with a lot of positive procedural contributions left people feeling most satisfied. Overall, the effect was best when lots of people made positive procedural contributions, not just one person. In short, chipping in with these positive procedural contributions can give you better meetings, even if you are not the chair, and getting some colleagues to chip in too should increase the effect.

Having established that there is something you can do, even if you are not chairing a meeting, here are five important scenarios involving uncertainty.

Much uncertainty in meetings is almost entirely avoidable. It is that all-too-common uncertainty about what is being discussed. For example, the conversation may have drifted into a debate about what to do, when that was not anticipated or planned, has no structure and it is not even clear what alternatives are being compared.

You could say: “So, am I right in thinking we are trying to decide X, and the options we are currently comparing are A, B and C?” This positive procedural contribution on its own might be enough to restore some order. You might add: “Are there other options we should be considering?”

Sometimes comparison of options is not the best way to think about a problem because the conversation is iteratively designing a solution. You could say something like: “So, am I right in thinking we are trying to come up with a way to X, and so far we have ruled out anything involving A, but we might be able to do it through B or C, which are the options we are exploring at the moment?”

Ideally, the agenda should identify the key tasks of the meeting and indicate a process for each one, but in practice this is quite rare. Most meetings I have been to had either no agenda or a list of topic names only.

A slightly less common but still important situation is where a disagreement has developed over some issue and progress has stalled. Both sides seem to think they know the answer, or at least that the other side does not know the answer, and time is ebbing away.

This kind of stalemate usually indicates that nobody really knows, because the problem involves too much uncertainty to be resolved without more information. A useful contribution is to point this out and propose getting more information. You might say: “We have been discussing this for a while and I think the reason we have not resolved it is that we need more certainty. What can we do to get more information that will help us with this? Is there some quick research we can do? Is there a way forward that will allow us to make some immediate progress and at the same time gather more information towards a proper solution?”

You should find most people in the room agree with this approach, even if one or two people do not. I have described this scenario in both surveys and through my teaching at the Southampton Business School and the intervention described above is the most strongly supported by every group. Very few fail to spot this as the best response to protracted disagreement in a meeting.

Sometimes people make statements in meetings that are quantitatively vague. They will use a phrase when they could have given a number. For instance: “We have received many complaints from customers about this recently” is vague as to how many complaints and over what period of time. It could mean three complaints or 300 for all we know. And recently could be in the last day or the last six months.

The obvious response is to ask for numbers. If they are not available then press for at least a range within which the truth lies. People often do not realise how vague they have been. In the above example, it is helpful to hear that the number of complaints has not been counted but is somewhere between 50 and 100 over the past week.

People are often vague about how likely something is. They may say a risk is ‘high’, which is almost meaningless. Ask for odds or a percentage certainty. What you are asking for is a numerical degree of belief. The logic of such statements has been thoroughly studied and we know that probabilities like this convey information, with some probability sources conveying more information than others on average. This may be because there is more data or a better analytical method was used, for example. A subjective certainty of, say, 5%, is more informative than the words ‘not very likely’.

Occasionally a group needs to make a quick estimate or prediction. This is a problem that has been studied repeatedly by psychologists. If there are facts to support the estimate then it makes sense to have a conversation that digs out those facts and uses them to calculate a number. However, if the best that can be done is an educated guess it is best to avoid a discussion in which numbers are mentioned and instead ask everyone with relevant expertise to think of their personal estimate, write it down, and then share it. Take an average of the estimates and consider their spread for evidence of interesting differences.

Do not mention a number or allow anyone else to mention a number before the poll is conducted because numerous studies have shown that such mentions tend to bias estimates. This is called anchoring. Also, beware of group polarisation, which is the tendency for groups that discuss issues to end up with a more extreme but not more accurate position than they would have without conversation.

One situation that is crucial to managing business risk is where a meeting is asked to consider predictions that have been made. For instance, someone might be trying to get backing for a project and has made estimates of the costs and benefits of that project. If something is important enough for estimates to have been made at all then it is important enough for uncertainty around those estimates to be expressed in some way, and for the implications of that uncertainty to be considered. For example, if a prediction of sales quantity was made and other figures calculated from it then we should expect to see not just the range of sales quantities that are credible but also the financial implications of the high, expected and low levels. In particular, if sales were disappointing then where would we be financially?

When assessing this scenario, most people understand that asking for an analysis that shows the implications of different levels of success is a good idea. So, if you suggest it then most people will agree with you, even if they do not speak up at first. This is more likely if you, as a professional accountant, always provide this sort of analysis when you present predictions.

In summary, well-conducted meetings are crucial to managing risk effectively, but managing risk during meetings is also crucial to well-conducted meetings.

A consistent finding from the research when using hypothetical scenarios is that people are not always able to distinguish between less than ideal solutions, but tend to give their strongest support for actions that are open, honest and risk aware. Even if it is not what is usually done, most people respond well to a solution that is open, honest and risk aware, and will think it is sensible and appealing.

• Make your meetings better
  Business & Management magazine, Issue 275, June 2019

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Further reading on running effective meetings is available in the articles below.