Run Better Meetings

Here are five handy tips for how to run a better meeting:

Limit attendance. Include only decision makers and key implementers.
Use an agenda. Give each topic a time limit. Ask your staff to help set the agenda so they'll know the meeting will be relevant.
Make sure attendees know at the meeting's beginning the benefit of why they are in the meeting.
Create a not-on-the agenda list of topics that will be tabled for after the meeting or for another meeting.
Set immediate deadlines for carrying out all decisions that are made during the meeting.

If you follow these simple five tips you can prove to your team that meetings can be used to get things done!

Learn more about how to host an effective meeting by reading the booklet, "Best Life: Tips for 2009."

Comments

davidburkusJuly 18, 2010 at 6:58 PM
I've been fascinated with the idea of running "standing" meetings. I think making everyone stand forces them to be brief, bright and gone.
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Executive Coach Caroline SmithJuly 19, 2010 at 4:23 PM
Can we add this for #6? Turn off your cell phones! (so annoying and takes away from being present at the meeting)

I'd love to find out where to buy the "Best Life: Tips for 2009" booklet. Can't find it on Amazon.
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Executive Coach Caroline SmithJuly 20, 2010 at 1:42 PM
David....there is a great "how to" for effective standing meetings in "Mastering the Rockefeller Habits" by Verne Harnish. See Chapter 8 on mastering the daily and weekly executive meeting. Harnish calls the daily 15-min meeting a "huddle" where everyone stands.
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