Six real tips for better business meetings

A recent Google™ search for "tips for better business meetings" yielded over 42 million results. Forty-two million. To say that the consulting industry focus upon improving meetings has blossomed would be a real understatement. This article, however, isn't written from the perspective of a consultant, but from regular people who have had to suffer through interminably boring and nonproductive business meetings.

If you're the one calling the meeting, you need to start by asking yourself what you hope to accomplish. Be honest in your response. If there is a specific problem you need to resolve, is a meeting the best way to achieve that resolution, or is it just the best way to make certain you appear to be trying to resolve the problem? If the latter is more to the point, then you only need one tip to improve the meeting:

1. Don't have it. It will end up being a waste of everyone's time, and while it might provide some minor political cover in the short term, it will only serve to create resistance from the very people you need to help you politically over the long term.
   
   

   Unfortunately, some meetings are actually necessary elements of doing business. For those meetings that are truly essential (and most people would place those in the very low minority), there are a few tips that can help make them more efficient and more pleasant, and might even make them something your employees eagerly anticipate (no, really... it can happen!). The title promised six, and the first is out of the way, so here goes:



2. Schedule the meeting fairly early in the morning, preferably on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. Give employees time to handle the first critical details of their day (or at least to have their first cup of coffee). Nobody is functioning as well on Mondays, and they've likely got fires to put out that they left on their desks the previous Friday, anyway. And on Friday, they're focused on getting out and starting their weekend, so anything that gets decided will likely wait until Monday for action.


3. Invite only those people who actually need to attend. Few things are as tiresome as sitting through a meeting to which you have nothing to add, and from which you will gain nothing. Yet many managers seem to think that the success of a meeting depends upon how many people they can get to attend. Truth is, the most successful meeting is one in which every participant both gives and receives real value from attending. So if you're holding a meeting to discuss improvements in international sales, the night lead in the warehouse and the security guard can probably be safely dropped from the list of invited attendees. No need to waste everyone's time - both crucial attendees and seat-fillers - just to fill the room.


4. Bring food. . There's a commercial for a burger chain that shows a guy casually eating breakfast until he looks at his watch. The announcer advises buying a sackful of breakfast burritos, because "that way, you won't be the guy (or gal) who's late; you'll be the guy (or gal) who brought breakfast, and everybody likes that guy." Most managers don't recognize the essential truth and wisdom in this. Even the people who would otherwise hate sitting through another meeting will jump at the chance to attend one that is catered with a tasty tidbit. Even if your expense account won't cover the twenty bucks or so to buy munchies for everyone, the kind of enthusiasm and cooperation you'll get from your full-bellied co-workers will be a great return on your investment. One caveat: be sensitive to the eating habits of your employees, and don't provide only pig-lip and chicken-parts tacos to the vegans in your department. You can rarely go too far astray with croissant or doughnuts, however.


5. Set a schedule and stick to It (sort of). While this tip appears on virtually every consultant's list, it is also one that is almost universally ignored. As pressing as the problem of the hour might be, and as commanding and endearing as your own presence might be to your employees, they want to know when they'll be able to get back to their offices and attend to the critical tasks at hand, like checking their e-mail, Facebook pages, and responses to their tweets. And just because you fed them at 10:00, don't delude yourself into thinking that they'll forgive you for running into their lunch hour. So before the meeting, come up with a schedule that allows a specific amount of time for discussing each individual topic. Schedule about 25% less time than you think the topic demands; that way, you'll be perceived as committed to fixing things when you allow the discussion to go on for 20 minutes instead of the 15 you've scheduled. And if (when) a discussion seems to be getting bogged down or distracted, suggest that the people involved get together and brainstorm after the meeting. Everyone else will be thanking you.


6. Finally, be sure to follow up on progress made on the meeting's action items. Be sure to offer appropriate praise for those who most effectively obfuscate in their description of their remedial actions, especially those who haven't actually taken any action, but still talk a good game. Give them plenty of warning before the follow-up meeting, so that they can most effectively package their obfuscation and effectively justify their lack of action. And as to those who have actually taken measures to correct the problems discussed in the meeting, keep a close eye on them, as they are probably after your job. Offer them plenty of atta-boys, and praise their accomplishments and attitudes. Then transfer them to another division, if possible, before they make you look bad.

While these tips might not provide you with the best means of accomplishing any corporate goals, they will, at the very least, make life more pleasant for you and the people with whom you work. And in the final analysis, isn't a happy workplace right at the top of our lists of things that matter?