Expert Insight

From my experience, meetings are the most poorly used resource in business today.   Overplayed by managers and shunned by employees alike, meetings could produce much greater benefits if their were focused on a single topic.

While most businesses need to have more extensive management meetings on a monthly or quarterly basis, a typical meeting with the team should be really focused on what is most important.  Want a few more ways to improve meeting productivity?

1.  Have an agenda with time stops that is distributed to meeting attendees in advance.

2.  Start and stop the meeting on time.  No exceptions!

3.  At the start time, close and lock the door.  Late commers will get the message real fast.

4.  Keep the meeting to 20 minutes and have everyone standing throughout.  It promotes discipline.

If you dicipline yourself to run meetings by planning them, communicating your expectations, staying focused and finishing on time, you will garner much greater respect from the participants.