One item that we discussed in class that was of particular interest to me was how to have more productive and efficient meetings. All too often, I find myself dragged into meetings that seem to go on forever with no clear results at the close of the meeting. We seem to have a difficult time of effectively communicating during meetings. One very helpful tip that I found was simply put: DON’T MEET. The author went on to explain that we often call meetings for tasks that could be addressed with a quick email, phone call, or posting on the corporate intranet. The key determinant as to whether or not you need a venue for one-way or two-way information sharing. If only one-way communication is required in the situation, then a meeting probably isn’t needed. I completely agree that many businesses seem to get “meeting happy” and schedule meetings for all sorts of issues that could be easily addressed via other means. Going forward, I will try to encourage my co-workers to limit the number of meetings that we hold so that we can all make better use of our time. The article goes on to give some great additional tips for meetings:
http://www.effectivemeetings.com/meetingbasics/6tips.asp
Alan I enjoyed the article you provided and I also like the point you made in your blog post which was a useful tip for meetings- "Don't meet." It's unfortunate when companies become,as you mentioned, "meeting happy" and have meetings that seem endless without getting much covered. I liked your suggestion to instead of having a meetings, to send out an email. Email is a wonderful tool that can easily relay information more successfully and at a more cost efficient means. I also enjoyed the last tip which was to examine the meeting process to discuss what went well and what can be done to improve future meetings.
ReplyDeleteAlan I found this article to be very educational. As I had noted on Professor Kappenman's blog, the meetings at Reebok tend to be very ineffective. Our meetings often overlap and end up being rescheduled or canceled due to other meeting conflicts or inadequate planning. With that said these meetings pull us away from our desks and sometimes even waste our time when all information discussed could have been conveyed via e-mail. Much like you, I plan on encouraging my co-workers to limit the amount of meetings we have. Furthermore, I will reinforce that meetings should only be held if two-way communication is necessary.
ReplyDeleteI think that it is interesting that there are companies in which the quantity of meetings vs the quality of meetings is one way they measure the effectiness of their communication.
ReplyDeleteIn my carrer some of my performance measurements have been based on the # of meetings I held in year. I would quess in some organizations that is still the case today.
Alan, meetings are probably one of the critical communications venues in any functioning organization. We can't live without them, but we often wish we could. I hope that all of you will leave this class with a passion and some tools to never be guilty of "death by meeting."
ReplyDeleteWhile it is imporatnt to be able to effectively organizae and run a meeting, it is equally important to know when a meeting is really necessary. Alan, your post points out how managers should always determine if a meeting can be replaced with another communication channel. Avoiding unnecessary meetings will not only save people time, it will also allow for more effective meetings when they are actually needed since employees will not have been discouraged from previous metings that were unnecessary.
ReplyDeleteAlan, It is so true about office meetings and now it is so obvious that it does not even get any attention. At my workplace, there is one manager who pretty much applies the methods that you showed in your link. For any meeting invitation, he send the objective, role of participants, and time alloted for the meeting specifically written in the e-mail body besides the time clock of the email. Hopefully, I can the passion from this class and experience from this type of manager to better handle my meetings.
ReplyDeleteAmen... Can we possibly require a license to host recurring meetings??
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