Go Woody Wire

Meetings are useful for a lot of things, but catch a bad rap thanks to those who come unprepared and have no idea why they are in them.

The former Chief Solutions Officer at Yahoo!, Tim Sanders, suggested that we should cancel an unnecessary meeting in favor of a conference call. 

Taking his sentiment to higher level is Jason Fried, CEO and founder of 37signals. He co-wrote the book called “Getting Real.” In it he describes a culture and work style that strives to eliminate meetings, interruptions and really tough decisions.

In an idealistic world, where the only thing that mattered was execution, Fried’s system would work flawlessly.

In the real world, I have found that meetings are actually really important. Although I agree that they should be made less frequent and more focused.

Below is a list of tips for tightening up your next meeting. Try them all or just a couple to see if it helps your attendees feel like their time was well spent:

1. Make meetings optional. Those who do not show up didn’t need to be there anyway. They’ll have to deal with the repercussions of the decisions made.
2. Eliminate the use of phones and email. Get your attendees total attention.
3. Lock your door at the start of the meeting. People coming late is a huge distraction.
4. Create a written agenda and set some goals. Know what you want to accomplish, so you don’t get off track.
5. If conversation gets off-topic, suggest the conversation be taken off-line when the meeting is over.
6. Provide background information before the meeting, so attendees do not have to brought up to speed during them meeting. If necessary, create your own one page summary of the background information because no one should be expected to read a twenty page report.
7. Assign deadlines and action items at the end of the meeting. This helps add closure.
8. Food and beverage are nice, but unnecessary if a meeting is an hour or less. It also slows things down for the first 10-20 minutes. And by my standards, you should be wrapping things up by then.
9. Schedule your meeting for 30 minutes, not an hour. Things can get accomplished in 30 minutes if they are focused.
10. Eliminate the warm-up/ice-breaker, if you don’t need it.

Do you have one to add or disagree with one of these? Leave a comment and let me know.