According to a Wall Street Journal article, ‘Too many meetings’, was the number one time-waster at the office”. I believe it. On average, an office worker spends four hours a week in meetings and most regard this as time wasted. You know the drill, the meeting for the meeting about the meeting.
One cause of a meeting killer is the cell phone. If you are the leader of a meeting, you may consider not allowing the devices in the conference room. This is one of the biggest offenders of a meeting “gone bad”…..even if the text is business related. It is rude and distracting for all involved.
The article points out the five meeting offenders. Are you one?
- The Jokester: Cracks jokes during the meeting
- The Dominator: Greatly overestimates her value and opinons
- The Naysayer: Negative atitude
- The Rambler: Takes the discussion and goes off topic with it; you ask them the time and they tell you how to build a clock.
- The Quiet Plotter: Quiet during the meeting and then later undermines the team and the leader in the break room.
Five Tips for More Productive Meetings
- Always have an agenda.
- Be a leader and set a “no device rule”. You can also schedule periodic “tech breaks” for emails, calls, etc.
- Limit the length of Power Point slides. This is annoying. No one wants to listen to someone read to them from a slide.
- Set a time limit for the meeting. Stick to it.
- If the meeting goes off on a tangent, be a leader and bring it back to the purpose. Trust me, it will be appreciated.
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