How to Have Great Meetings
Can you imagine a workplace without meetings? Most people can’t. There are over 11 million meetings a day in the U.S. alone.
Since we started our company over three years ago, we’ve come pretty close to our goal of no meetings. Sure, we talk. We get things done. And every once in a while we even have a “meeting.” We like them to zip along, though. Start fast, end faster, get to work. This week I stumbled across three very interesting articles about how to have effective meetings, each of which start with an admonition about avoiding meetings.
Five Weeeeird Tips for Great Meetings. Alexander, the Chief Happiness Officer, makes me smile every day. He offers some fun tips for effective meetings. One idea: Lose the table and meet standing up.
7 Ways to Avoid Pointless Meetings. Ben at Institgator Blog subtitled this one “Meeting don’t have to suck.”
The 7 Sins of Deadly Meetings. This Fast Company article says, “Meeting are too long. They should do twice as much in half the time.”
Although professionals in American business are said to waste over 30 hours in meetings monthly, there is a better way. Way back when I started working I used to attend group meetings that were quick…and on time. The big boss used to lock the conference room door at the exact time the meeting was to begin. And inevitably someone who was late would tug on the door. They only did that once.
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5 Responses to “How to Have Great Meetings”
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Even Death by Meeting by Lencioni I think has some simple and easy to implement advice. I also think that the style the author uses, advice via “fable” makes it infinately more approachable and obvious how to implement.
Would love your thoughts on the overlap of HR and Web 2.0 / communities. I will blog on this later this week.
http://www.communitygrouptherapy.com
Sean
Hi Sean. I somehow missed reading Death by Meeting. I’ll wander by the book store tomorrow and grab a copy. Looks like excellent material. Fables are accessible…I liked The Goal for that reason. Thanks for the ref.
Cool stuff you have going at Community Group Therapy. I’ll send you a note about your HR/Web 2.0 question.
Cheers.
great, I have a post I’ll put up in the next few days on the topic and it would be cool to have someone from an HR perspective comment on it.
sean
i’m convinced that there are two kinds of people in one’s workplace: those who love meetings and those who hate them. i hate them; they’re a waste of time and nothing comes of them in my office. at least not the way our meetings are conducted.
Albert, I’m afraid how they are at your office is sadly how it is in many places. I do think there’s a social aspect to meetings, but beyond that, there has to be a darned good meeting leader…and a commitment on everyone’s part to get things done. Otherwise…total waste.