Inefficiency in meetings and the Lark Method
Throughout history, the top cause of increased productivity is the application of innovations to a broad level. During the past industrial revolutions and current technology revolution led by generative AI, we see many new opportunities as those technologies enable us to do previously unthinkable things. For example, the new Generative AI technology, namely Stable Diffusion, enabled people to create digital art with no prior experience in drawing or graphic design. As a relentless learner myself, I keep looking for opportunities and innovations to maximize efficiency in my life. One pain point I had was long meetings. We all hate long meetings where people do individual updates. In them, it is easy for the participants to not prepare enough for the meeting, go on a tangent for a long time, and sit there doing nothing when others are talking. I want to share a new meeting structure, The Lark Method.
MediaStorm is a Chinese startup focusing on the filming industry. Inefficiency in meetings arose as a natural problem as the team got larger. Some people could be underprepared for the meeting, forgetting to mention specific things they had in mind while going on a tangent about unimportant things. Two people could be arguing about something completely irrelevant to half of other people. After hearing the updates from all participants, the meeting would usually run over or worse, having to set up a follow-up meeting. As a young and innovative company, MediaStorm adopted a meeting structure proposed by Lark who makes apps for team management.
This method contains three major steps,
First, all participants put their updates, needs, and blockers on a shared document before the meeting. This step ensures enough preparation as putting the items down on a document makes it easier to think of other things that need attention.
Secondly, for the first fifteen minutes of the meeting, the participants should stay quiet, read all updates from the document, and put comments where they have questions or need discussion. Such action ensures parallelism for going through the action items and enables the participants to discuss different topics simultaneously. Naturally, every participant is only interested in discussions on certain topics. For example, two members of the engineering team could discuss technical details in one comment section of the document, while members in the marketing department could talk about a completely different topic in different sections of the document. Additionally, discussions through comments eliminate the need for meeting minutes as the discussion process records itself through comments.
Lastly, verbal discussions should only happen when unresolvable items exist in the document after the first two steps. Doing so greatly eliminates the possibility of having unimportant or tangent topics and ensures the most efficient use of meeting time.
As a relentless learner, I enjoy learning from others and trying to come up with innovative approaches to solve real-life problems. I came across this method when hearing a talk from the founder of MediaStorm, and his insight instantly reminded me of the problems I had with RSOs that I am a part of the executive board of - long and inefficient meeting times. In the next meeting, I proposed the Lark Method as a new meeting structure, and this resulted in improved involvement and participation in the executive meeting and much better efficiency of the weekly meetings. As a result, the meeting almost never ran over and we finish more action items on average compared to the past.
Management is about magnifying your impact. A good leader will always take care of the team, enabling the team to deliver the most while focusing on the personal development of the team members. I want to become a better leader through the Technology and Management Program at the University of Illinois, helping myself to grow while contributing to the program and the people around me.