One of the biggest time wasters in the
corporate world are unnecessary, badly
planned and even worst managed meetings.
I've worked in many office environments
where I've had hours and hours of
unnecessary meetings each week. While it's
a nice social function, it also forces
everybody to work much faster to get
everything they need done. You want to
identify the meetings that that actual
add value to your day or you add value
to and go to those. And try and avoid
everything else and if they're mandatory
make sure their last longer than they
have to. For me it's worked talking to my
boss explaining how i have important and
urgent work I need to get done. How it'd
be happy to read the meeting minutes
from the meeting or simply have a
colleague give me the highlights. A lot
of managers understand that the meetings
aren't really important but they're just
not sure how to avoid them either.
Obviously this is one of the areas where
you need to do it with a little bit of
finesse. You can't just stomp your feet
and say you won't go you need to come up
with compelling arguments and reasons
why your time is better spent doing
something else. And of course when you're
hosting meetings you need to you on top
of everything. Make sure things happen on
time, ask for anything people want on the
agenda two days prior to the meeting
send out the agenda at least 24 hours
before the meeting. This way everybody
has a chance to prepare for the meeting
and you can run the meeting as
efficiently as possible. Stick to the
agenda you send out if someone has
something that they want to add the
agenda it's not urgent or important. Ask
them to send you an email about it and
cover it in the next meeting. You warned
them ahead of time, then knew they need to
get their items in for the agenda before
the meeting. Also start the meeting on
time, if people don't bother showing up
on time and they miss something
that's on them, if they want you to
re-cover it, tell them to read the meeting
minutes. Which you of course again send out
after the meeting. If you're meeting has
screen sharing or phone bridges open
them five minutes prior to the meeting,
and again start on time.
The same really goes for anything else
you do where you interact with people. If
you can, explain what you want to talk to
them about, give them a chance to
prepare and show up on time. You most
likely can't ask or force any of your
co-workers or your boss to do any of
these things but you can set the good
example. Show them how much more
efficient it can be run, show them how
much time they can get back. Be the good
example it actually works. If I get
invited to a meeting and there's no agenda I
ask for one, if they still don't bother
sending one out I may not show up. If
that's not an option then I will show up,
but then I'll ask for the agenda again. I
want them to be very clear on what we're
covering, what's the purpose of a meeting,
when do we know we're done. But just like
much of the other stuff do it with
finesse, don't be difficult to work with.
Just force them to think it through and
hopefully over time they'll get better.
They'll see how well it works when you run
the meetings. If they ask for help, help
them. A lot of people have never had any
training on how to run meetings and
they're nervous about it that's
perfectly fine. Be the good example and
hopefully all they'll ask for your help.
You can learn something from anyone, if this
is one of the areas where you're better
than some of you colleagues, teach them,
help them to get better at it and I'm
sure they'll do the same in turn for you
when they have something there better
at than you and on top of that you'll all
get valuable hours back each week and
again it's a win-win
Let's move on!
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