Are you a good meeting participant? A bad meeting is everyone’s fault.
Posted by richdigirolamo in Motivational Speaker on 05 14th, 2010 | no responses>
Tired of attending meetings? Ever wonder what their purpose is? Does your organization suffer from too many meetings? Do you find that you attend meetings with no point? Are you holding meetings to plan and schedule future meetings?
Congratulations! You are now part of a group of people who employees, coworkers and committees want to push off the roof of a building.
Once upon a time people looked forward to being invited to a meeting; it made them feel important. These days people run as far as they can when a meeting invitation appears and spend more time complaining about the meeting than turning it into a valuable experience.
But did you ever think that maybe you’re part of the blame??????
Here are some thoughts to get you thinking next time you’re sitting in a meeting doodling or counting ceiling tiles rather than being present. And don’t worry I’m not gonna waste your time by listing things like start on time. I’ve given up on that one.
- Why am I here? – Seriously, why are you part of this meeting? Your expertise? Your knowledge? Someone thinks you will learn something? Without understanding why you’re in attendance you will never get the full benefit of the meeting or contribute to the level expected or capable. There’s a reason you’re there; so either offer information or ask questions. Or both!
- Who else is here? Too often the wrong people are invited to a meeting; and by the wrong people I mean too many or people who could be “filled in” afterwards in a few minutes. The only thing you’re doing is wasting lots of valuable time when the wrong people are there. Five people who don’t need to be in a meeting for an hour is five hours of lost productivity; not one. Who really needs to be there? What contribution will they make? When the meeting is over what is this person going to do? Do they really need to attend the meeting? Don’t be afraid to un-invite yourself; or someone else.
- The dreaded To-Do List – So what are the 935 action steps that you’re going to need to take as a result of this meeting? Which are the ones that matter? The ones that don’t matter? What are you going to delegate before you even get back to your desk? One of the major problems with meetings is that people commit to things that cannot or do not need to be delivered. Be realistic in what needs to get done versus what would be nice to get done.
- New ideas are not discussed – Why aren’t new ideas discussed before or after a meeting? There is no doubt that someone sitting around a conference room table had an A-HA moment or a brilliant idea. There is no doubt someone had a thought that started with “I wonder if……” or something like that. Leave a few minutes at the end of a meeting to discuss these things – which means you should have an agenda and a set (and adhered to) meeting time!
- Rate the meeting – why aren’t meetings rated? Why aren’t we rating our participation? We rate presenters at conferences. We rate content by presenters? But why aren’t we rating the actual meeting itself and the actual value that we contributed to the meeting?
Meetings are only as successful as the people who show up and take responsibility for being there. Do that and your meetings will be more efficient, more effective and probably less often or shorter. So leave your ego at the door, come up with some objectives of your own and turn what has become a way too unproductive event into something much better. In other words, own the meeting and have fun while being there. You might as well, since you already know there are 142 ceiling tiles.
For a free copy of The Meeting PLAYce Mat; a tool to make your next meeting more MEETingful send me an email. Make sure you send me a snail mail address or I can’t send it to you.
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