Business Meeting Skills

Better Business Meetings

When it comes to business meetings it really does seem that we can't live with 'em, nor can we live without 'em.

They are either

Too long
Too short
Too boring
Too rigid
Too flexible
Too many games and hidden agendas
Too little direction
Have too few outcomes

Well-focused
Well-Chaired
On-time
On-target
Creative
Productive
Enjoyable

Meetings Take Up Time

For many people in larger organisations, meetings can take up a significant portion of the working week.

If meetings are badly run or poorly scheduled they can overrun, overlap, get curtailed, get cancelled and destroy your best-laid time-management plans at a stroke.

Well-run business meetings are a joy to partake in.

Clear Agenda

They have clear agendas, are kept to time and are chaired with discipline and fairness.

All of us have been in business meetings that get off the agenda, go round in circles, cover old ground, get stuck on one issue, have people with hidden agendas.

Also, there are some other 'flies in the ointment' that can upset the best intentions of a meeting plan, and if they get into a badly run meeting, they can cause chaos.

One of these 'flies' is that patterns get set (this is especially true with regular meetings where mostly the same people attend).

Don't Accept the Status Quo

Everyone kind of knows how the meeting will go, who will say what, who will argue with whom.

A status quo is established in meetings that people passively accept.

Because meetings can be such powerful forums.

They can be the perfect place to overturn the status quo, confront the game playing and hidden agendas and make them a really worthwhile process.

Business Meetings can then become a part of the day people look forward to because they know that there will be a meeting of minds, even if occasionally the sparks fly.