I mentioned this earlier in the week; meetings kill productivity.
I know so many people that are always in “back-to-back” meetings.
They then moan about not having time to do their work.
Newsflash. This was your work – it was just wrong.
You need to learn to say no.
Spend a week with my wife and you will be an expert!
Ok, seriously though. When a meeting is called – ask the questions:
- Do we really need to meet?
This will probably stop it there and then, but if it is a must then:
- What is the agenda? and
- Who is going to be there?
- What is the objective or desired outcome of this meeting?
If you are going to have a meeting and don’t get me wrong, there are still times when you do need to meet, then here is 3 tips:
- Keep the agenda short! No more than 3 items! One would be even better.
- Keep the invite list short – 3 to 5 people max – too many people means that there will be people that shouldn’t be there and others with their own or different agenda.
- Control the time! – Max 30 mins – people don’t have long attention spans, so do what you need to do as quickly as possible.
There are obviously exceptions to this and times when you need more or longer meetings but I am talking about the day to day not quarterly or group catch up meetings
The last point is that meetings are for discussions not presentations! This is important!
A presentation can be sent to you on email it doesn’t need a meeting to go through.
This is a huge time saver and one that if effectively executed reaps huge benefits and rewards.
BL
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