Planned and run correctly,

meetings are invaluable.

All the rest suck eggs!

Dear Boss, Please stop dragging people into meetings in order to give yourself an audience. They hate it, and you’re wasting their time as well as yours! Not to mention that time is money. Unplanned-for, slipshod-run meetings produce the exact opposite of what you need. They discourage and de-motivate. They frustrate and result in costly dumb errors that lose customers and antagonize suppliers.

All meetings? Of course not.Just the ones with no time schedule, no agenda that’s been circulated in advance and posted in the room, inadequate meeting space and supplies, no facilitative leadership, and no follow-up. That’s all. Just those. Aaaah, but wouldn’t you know it? That’s probably the majority of meetings worldwide. Now. Tomorrow.

Well, so that makes it okay because most other businesses and organizations are winging it, right? Not on your life. Not in this ever-deepening quagmire of an economy. Not in this day and age. There is no time to waste. This ain’t the good ole days! You can’t sit around with your feet up and a pot of coffee and brainstorm jokes for a couple of hours.

Meetings must be well-planned, executed, and filled with high energy. Good meetings ignite positive, problem-solving mindsets. Long-distance online meetings from Skype to Go-To-Meeting-type options can be effective tools. So can good old-fashioned teleconferences. Texting? No. Facebook chats? No. Tweets? No. Instant Messages? No.

First, hand pick participants according to what each can contribute, who has a need to know the subject matter, and whom you want to know more. Forget about titles, rank, age, or how busy people are. For long, status report or job/task review type meetings, stagger participants to come and go according to topic relevancy.

If you anticipate a meeting turning into a political firestorm, check this bit of enlightenment.

Everyone doesn’t need to be part of every discussion. When you think it through ahead of time, it’s more work and takes longer to plan, but the results will be dramatically improved, and more productive (both time and dollar-value-wise) for participants. Better-planned and led meetings can positively impact your bottom line as well. 

The single most important meeting tool and most often overlooked is the agenda. It needs to be carefully planned. It can’t be too overwhelming (more short meetings beat fewer long ones). Chunk it up! Some even attach time in minutes to each topic. Circulate it ahead of time and ask for input. Reproduce it poster-style in the meeting room.

Follow it. Do not allow anyone to not follow it. Politely thank people for off-topic comments and ask them to save them for the next meeting or include them on a separate agenda. You cannot stick to a time schedule if people sidetrack the agenda items. Be a clock watcher until it becomes second nature. Always honor start and stop times.

Hidden Agendas? Try this information on for size!

For a period of time when I had some major talker-types involved in weekly meetings, I had all the chairs removed or covered with boxes. It didn’t take long to get everyone focused on moving the agenda along quickly when they had to stand. Whatever you do, give meetings more attention. The ROI can be pleasantly surprising.   

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Hal@Businessworks.US  302.933.0116 

  Open minds open doors. 

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