For as long as there have been meetings, there have been people who are managing meetings who have no business being in charge of a meeting.  See if you can place names on any of these…

- Meeting leader has an uncanny knack at taking an issue that can be resolved in 5 minutes…and stretching it to over an hour by analyzing it to death.

- Meeting leader LOVES to hear self talk.

- Meeting leader will not step up when another Type A in the room takes over their meeting.

- Meeting leader spends untold amounts of time sharing info that would much better have been distributed via email (i.e. reads wordy charts, or rereads and email everyone has already received).

You know any of those people?

Did you attach your name to any of these?  OUCH!!!

The hard thing to remember sometimes is that meetings should have purpose.  That purpose is NOT to feed the meeting leader’s ego or insecurity.  It is also NOT to give the meeting leader and opportunity to be heard.

Meetings are about getting input from others for the purpose of getting something accomplished.

What about recurring staff or status meetings?  From my perspective, they are largely unnecessary.  Most of the items communicated can easily be shared via email.  Staff meetings should, in my opinion, be only held as often as needed.  If there is no info that requires a face-to-face to cover…cancel it!!!

Don’t have a meeting  just to be having a meeting.

The key to leading effective meetings…is preparation.  Where have you heard that before?  Plan ahead.  What do you need to be mindful of?

- Do I have ALL of the people who are relevant to this discussion in the meeting?

- Do I have ONLY the people that are relevant to this discussion on my meeting invitation?

- Have I prepared an agenda to keep me on topic and help the meeting flow?

- Have I left enough time in my agenda for questions?  What about reviewing assigned actions? Are those actions and the expectations for those actions clearly defined?

What’s the point?

The point is that every meeting you attend uses an asset that is not being manufactured anywhere these days…TIME.

As we have seen on many discussions on the forums, to some degree, proper management of time is essential to improving productivity.  I have been in the business world for a while, but I have never checked off an action item sitting in a conference room with 20-50 other people…unless I was leading the meeting.

- Plan the meeting

- Invite the right people

- Get to the point and cover the revlevant info

- Do not lose control of the meeting

- Wrap up…cover actions…answer questions, etc.

- Get the heck out, and get the action items done.

That is my manifesto on meetings.  What do you think?  Let’s take it outside…into the forum.