Someone recently said to me, “Paul, you seem to be in loads of meetings, your days seem ful of meetings.” It is true I do my fair share because of all the forums I’m engaged in and I can honestly say some meetings are good and some are bad and some are disastrous. So I was thinking through some guidelines for good meetings. Here’s 7 off the top:
1: Don’t take meetings unnecessarily: Remember, no is a legitimate answer.
2: Ask, What is the Purpose of this meeting: Define the outcome.
3: Ask, Who’s driving the meeting: This is very important as you can gauge a lot by a meeting by who the driver is.
4: Define an appropriate amount of time: You can only do this if you are the chair or driver but it’s vitally important. Any meeting that I would define as disastrous has usually been a meeting that went on too long.
5: Dress Appropriately: If in doubt dress up not down.
6: Schedule Preparation Time: The biggest failure of meetings is attending unprepared, even if there’s no agenda, if you know the purpose you can still prepare.
7: Pay attention to Hello’s and Goodbye’s: They matter, they matter a lot.
Paul Benger 