"I didn't want to come to the meeting, but I'm glad I did." Over the years, I have heard that confession many times.
Whatever the meeting - annual, quarterly or weekly - some of us, in various instances, would just prefer to skip. It's a pretty common feeling generally stemming from one or more of the following underlying root concerns:
- a history of unproductive, directionless meetings filled with lots of discussion and very little resolution
- way too busy to stop or slow down
- fear of conflict around sensitive issues
- unbillable expense of taking key people out of production
Great, highly productive business meetings are what we get when we properly address those four root concerns:
1. A great meeting must have clearly stated objectives for what we want to accomplish in the meeting, and an agenda that will enable us to achieve those objectives.
2. Busyness often has nothing to do with productivity. If we truly want to go fast, we have to slow down first, take the time to get on the same page, clearly plot the course going forward and remove the obstacles that can impede our progress.
3. Address the fear of conflict head on by being open and honest. Only by getting everything out into the open can we address and solve our issues. Our best meetings will be the ones where we remove the elephant from the room.
4. Unbillable hours must be managed because they do impact the bottom line, but consider this principle: issues pop up every day that require more than one person to resolve. That means we must meet with others. If we don't, issues will pile up and slow or stop our progress. It is much more efficient to meet regularly as a leadership team or department - following an agenda that focuses us to solve issues quickly - than to have dozens of unstructured sidebar meetings.
There's nothing like going into a meeting feeling hesitant, frustrated and/or overwhelmed, and coming out clear and focused with your issues resolved. Start enjoying great meetings today.
Learn more by reading about The Meeting Pulse TM in Chapter 8 of TRACTION, Get a Grip on Your Business. You can also click here to freely download The Meeting PulseTM tool and The Level 10 MeetingTM agenda.
