SAPIENTIA
Five Steps To A Productive Meeting
It is said that on an average day in the United States, there will be
17 million meetings. (It makes you wonder how anything ever gets
done!) A meeting is two or more people getting together to exchange
information. What could be simpler? Yet, it is one of the biggest
institutional time wasters that we suffer.
An informative exercise is to calculate the hourly cost of the
meeting. A person earning $50,000 per year represents an hourly salary
cost to the organization of $25 (without adding in benefits, overhead,
and profit potential). If ten people at this salary level meet for one
hour, the cost is $250 for the hour. Then look at what was
accomplished. Was it worth $250? Sometimes "yes". A lot of the times,
"no".
I have created five steps that will help you to improve the
productivity of your meetings. Even if you are not responsible for
running the meeting, bring these suggestions to the person who is
responsible.
1. Ask, "Is it necessary?" We always hold the meeting because we have
always held the meeting. What would happen if it did not take place?
What if we did not meet quite so often? How about if we met once a
month instead of every week?
2. Ask the question, "Am I necessary?" Now I do not mean this in the
deep philosophical sense, but, rather, "do I get anything out of the
meeting?" and "do I contribute anything to the meeting?" If the
answers to those two questions are both "no", try to avoid attending
the meeting. Or, perhaps just the first half of the meeting is
relevant to you. In this case, see if there is a way to get excused
from the second half of the meeting.
3. Prepare an agenda. Just as it is a good practice to prepare a daily
"to do list" to help us get focused each day, we ought to have a
written agenda for our meeting. Circulate it in advance to those who
will be attending. Let them know what is to be discussed. Give them a
chance to prepare. Do not hold meetings by "ambush".
4. Set the times. Have a starting time and stick to it. Set time for
each item to be discussed so that one item does not dominate the
entire meeting leaving no time to discuss the other items. Have an
ending time and stick to it.
5. Commit to action. Meetings ought to produce results. Resolve to a
course of action. We have discussed the issue, so now what? Assign
responsibility for the tasks to specific individuals with deadlines
and hold them accountable.
Written by Dr. Donald E. Wetmore