Meetings are necessary, but they don’t have to be a necessary evil.
Here’s some sound advice on how to make meetings matter. This advice comes from LinkedIn via Ben Baran, Ph.D., SPHR. Baran says, ” … it’s important to ensure that the right people are in the meeting, that the meeting topics are ones of relevance to the participants, that you actively keep the conversation on topic and that you don’t have meetings just for meeting’s sake. If you don’t need to have an in-person meeting to accomplish your goals, don’t have a meeting. If you want meetings to go quickly, try holding them while everyone is standing up. This works well for 10-minute huddles or daily kickoffs–don’t sit down, don’t get comfortable.”
A few more tips:
- Be organized and plan ahead
- Schedule meetings well in advance
- Demonstrate that you’re interested in what people have to say
- Start meetings on time
- End meetings on time (or early!)
- Provide an agenda beforehand and ask for input on items to discuss
One way we at Coleman Lew make our meetings more fun: Pastries.
