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?

1. The Jokester: Cracks jokes during the meeting
2. The Dominator: Greatly overestimates her value and opinons
3. The Naysayer: Negative atitude
4. 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.
5. 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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