Be well!

Chris

All points mentioned are so right!

How many times have you heard “That meeting was a waste of time!”?

Just as many if not more than “We had a good meeting”.

So, a challenge to everyone who reads this post, in the next week reduce your meetings attendance by 50%. Just don’t go – see what happens.

Andrew

Your suggestions are spot on. They don’t sound heavy-handed at all, they sound remarkably pragmatic and effective! Thanks for the comment.

-Art

Some additional things I have found useful:

1. Agendas! Agendas! Agendas! Never have a meeting without an agenda, publish and circulate it beforehand, make certain it has a very clear objective. Manage the meeting to the agenda.

2. Everyone should come to the meeting prepared. Circulate presentations beforehand, set and expectation that people should review the presentations beforehand. This enables you to spend the meeting time on discussing substantive issues, not presenting background stuff.

3. Start and end on time, always! At the appointed starting time, close the conference room door, and start the meeting. Don’t let the people enter late. If they are late, you either have to waste time bringing them up to speed, or they may have missed important parts. End on time, if you have planned appropriately, if people have prepared appropriately, if you manage the agenda appropriately, you should end on time. Always, always stop on time. The first few meetings, this will be difficult, but once you practice, you develop great habits.

4. If you are in the meeting then be in the meeting! No Blackberry’s, no email, no doing something else on your computer, no multitasking.

These may sound heavy handed, but once you start executing them, the quality of meetings skyrockets.