Business Meetings
On the Agenda
Distribute an agenda to all participants before a meeting, suggests Bill Carruth in Executive Communications. Reasons: (1) Participants have time to prepare and more to contribute, and (2) no time is wasted choosing the topics of discussion. Recommended: Select discussion topics at the end of the previous meeting, and build the agenda on that. Also useful: Concentrate on a few major points, all related in some way. If you have to deal with unrelated issues, schedule another, shorter meeting. Key: Tighten up your agenda, but leave room for creativity. Divide meetings into structured items (financial reporting, operations, etc.) and creative items (marketing strategy, long-range planning, etc.) Open informal discussions encourage creative thinking.
And
After…
You may be spending 25% to 30% of your time in meetings, according to a recent study – and that doesn't count the hours spent preparing for them. How do you deal with the information glut? Success Magazine recommends that you – Set aside a quiet time after each meeting to reflect on what just happened.
Decide what action you need to take as a result of the meeting.
Write your tasks in clear, complete sentences – you don't want to waste time deciphering them later.
Besieged By Meetings?
Are all those meetings really necessary? Before holding your next one, suggests Small Business Report, consider the alternatives:
One-on-one visits
Advantage: They're short, private and less likely to create misunderstanding.
Memos
Useful for communicating statistical and factual information.
Advantages: (1) They give people time to respond in writing, and (2) the written documents provide a permanent record.
Telephone calls
Advantage: the same as one-on-one visits – and you don't even have to leave the office. Caution: Phone-calls can be time-wasters, too.
Five Things To Avoid
But if you decide to go ahead and hold a meeting anyway, here are five things to watch out for:
- Don't try to cover too much ground in one meeting.
- Listen – don't do all the talking.
- But don't let the conversation drift, either. Stay on the subject.
- Avoid drawn-out arguments. They prove nothing and defeat the purpose of the meeting.
- Don't get discouraged if the meeting doesn't meet your expectations. It takes a while to get the knack of conducting successful ones.
Another Meeting? Here's Why It May Not Work
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