Working for a large corporation in a management role, I tend to attend quite a few meetings. As a general rule of thumb I don’t attend all of them, I attend those I feel I will gain information, be able to provide information, or make decisions.
I’ve recently been invited to a recurring status meeting for a technology project my organization has been working on. The agenda of the meeting is to give a general update, review schedule, open up the table for questions. This is how the meeting actually ran; the manager gave an overview, manager reviewed every project using Microsoft Project sharing his desktop, and when it came to ask questions DEAD SILENCE. Seriously, all I heard was people on the phone breathing a tad to heavy or sighing. Might as well have been crickets.
I see this often, the manager feels a need to be in charge, telling the staff the progress of projects, demonstrating the understanding of what is going on in a given project. That’s pretty much a waste of time.
What’s important about status meetings is that the staff is giving the updates. You as the manager should compare your expectations with what you’re hearing and question based on differences. Are there roadblocks you can remove for your staff? The net result is that you hear from the source the status, the staff has a sense of ownership and responsibility of their task. It’s also reinforces that you must attend a meeting. A meeting where the manager runs and talks for the entire team is going to lead to a meeting where no one shows up.