Most meetings are time wasters, and certainly most take twice as long as necessary. A previous survey of top executives reported in The Wall Street Journal revealed that meetings accounted for the greatest amount of their unproductive time, topping telephone calls, paperwork, travel, and office gossip.
But whether it’s a a one-on-one conversation with your boss or co-worker, or gathering of five, ten, or twenty people in a conference room, meetings are a fact of our everyday business lives. When you stop to think about it, how well you present yourself and your ideas and how well you work with other people are the two basic essentials of any career. And that’s exactly what meetings are all about. They are an important management tool. And the way you conduct yourself at meetings, whether as the leader or as a participant, can make or break your career.
Why then, are so many meetings boring, unproductive—and almost always too long? Here are a few of the reasons:
- No specific, clear-cut “objective” for the meeting, its leaders, or its participants.
- No meeting agenda.
- Too many or the wrong choice of participants.
- No consideration for allies or antagonists.
- Failure to prepare properly.
- Inability to present ideas concisely.
- Lack of sound leadership and control.
- Improper use of visual aids.
- Too many digressions and interruptions.
- Time wasted on “why” rather than “how.”
- Mixed final decisions.
Meretings don’t have to be long and unproductive. There’s another way. By mastering a few shortcuts and strategies you can get the job done—and in half the time.
Learn how to determine whether a meeting is really necessary (and how to say no if it isn’t), how to prepare for a meeting, how to present your ideas concisely (and briefly), and how to keep on track and on time.
My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, Line of Sight
