MEETING TIPS:
Have someone present to take concise notes for any necessary distribution.
-- Distribute minutes promptly, within 24 hours. -- Try holding some meetings
with everyone standing. More gets done in less time. -- Minimize "small talk."
Do not contribute to unnecessary conversation yourself. -- Spend a few minutes at
the end to critique the meeting just concluded. -- Read a good book on how to
conduct better meetings. -- Be prepared for the meeting. Resist tangents.
Stay on course. -- Consider alternatives to meetings, such as telephone conference
calls.
MANAGING MEETINGS -- BEING PREPARED MAKES A DIFFERENCE:
You can schedule all the meetings you want to, and if you are not prepared to take charge
then you’re wasting your time. The time you invest planning a meeting is time well spent.
The sooner you take action, the sooner you can enjoy the fruit of a productive meeting.
Before you schedule a meeting, determine its purpose and necessity. Document specifically
what you expect to accomplish during the meeting (including goals and objectives). A clearly
written plan allows you to focus solely on the issues you need to address. Next, determine
whether this purpose can be more efficiently achieved by some other means, such as a phone
call, a written memo, or an informal conversation.
MANAGING SMALL MEETINGS:
Keep the size of the meeting as small as possible. The larger the group, the more complicated
communication becomes and the more garbled the purpose may get. For example, with a group of
two, there are two communication channels, add a third person and six channels have been
created. With each additional person, the number of communication channels increases
expedientially. When selecting participants for the meeting, consider the following criteria:
-- expertise in the topics -- contribution to the discussion -- pre-existing personal conflicts
-need for new information.
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