“Meetings, Bloody Meetings” was the title of an old John Cleese video which showed how terrible meetings could be and how we could make them more effective.
Meetings are an inescapable part of business today. We attend many types of meetings:Formal, informal, sit down, stand up, internal, external, planned, impromptu- the list goes on. It is estimated that approximately 11 million meetings occur in the U.S. each and every day. Another estimate indicates that most professionals attend a total of 61.8 meetings per month. Many feel that over 50 percent of this meeting time is wasted.
No wonder then that many consider meetings a terrible waste of time. However, a well-conducted meeting can be invigorating, motivating and have a lasting impact on attendees.
Here are my 7 Ideas for Success for Conducting Effective Meetings:-
- Have a meeting only if this method is the best to achieve objectives
- Call only those who will add value
- Have an agenda with start and end times ( time budgets)
- Don’t have too big an agenda
- Be sensitive to all meeting participants and their needs
- Help meeting participants summarise take aways
- Release action oriented minutes as soon as possible
People at Work & Play 