Conducting Effective Meetings

An organization of any size requires meetings. Meetings help different people with different job responsibilities cooperate to complete projects and achieve objectives.

But as Peter Drucker noted, an abundance of meetings is a sign of a diseased organization. If you conduct effective meetings, they will become shorter and less frequent.

Here are a few guidelines for conducting effective meetings:

• Always clarify the objective of the meeting before you begin. Every meeting should have purposeful direction.
• Not all meetings are created equal. Different issues require different time constraints and team members. Don’t block off an hour for something that can be knocked off in ten minutes.
• Have a meeting moderator that guides the discussion toward the desired end goal.
• Make meeting preparation a requirement. When participates come unprepared to a meeting they waste your time and theirs.
• Use de Bono’s Six Thinking Hat method as an effective way to take individual personalities out of the equation, keep meetings running smoothly, and generate more ideas.
• Read Aaron Shield’s Creativity in the Workplace and learn how to facilitate powerful brainstorming sessions with your team. (It’s free and available on audio and pdf.)

Conducting more effective meetings will give you more time to be effective in your job—more time to focus on the needs of your customers.

Related posts:

1. Introverts and Meetings
2. Excessive Meetings = Ineffective Organization
3. Use the Six Thinking Hats for Meeting Effectiveness
4. Five Habits of Highly Effective Team Leaders
5. Five Habits of the Effective Executive