The best meeting-management training I ever got was from tapes produced by comedian John Cleese, who’s made a fortune as a corporate management consultant. Unfortunately they’re expensive, so if you have to learn meeting management without Pythonesque humor, here are a few resources that can help.
- The best and most straightforward advice I’ve found is at the Free Management Library, which lays out how the perfect meeting runs step by step. You have to tweak the plan for your own individual environment and personalities, but the tips are rock solid.
- About.com has a good article about meetings, making the excellent suggestion that someone must always be the “secretary,” the person to write down who is assigned what, and what their deadlines are. This page also links out to other good leadership coaching articles.
- GovLeaders.org has “six golden rules” of meetings. My favorite: “Don’t hold unnecessary meetings.” So true. How many times have you endured “the Monday meeting” not because a meeting is needed but because “we always have the Monday meeting.”
- And finally, Lifehack suggests the best way to deal with meetings is not to attend them or not to have them at all. See if you dare to try any of its suggestions.
The bottom line: meetings should always have an agenda, should always have a time limit, and should always result in a list of action items attached to people and deadlines. If your meetings are missing any of these three elements, fix them now!
Tags: management, meetings
