Top 10 Meeting Mistakes
By: Gloria McDonough-Taub | Senior Editor For Blogs
Meetings are for the most part, a waste of time. That's not my conclusion - really! That's the view from the top.
A recent survey found managers said that 28 percent of scheduled meetings are an utter waste of time. Considering that on average, executives spend 4 days a week in meetings - that's a lot of wasted time.
The survey conducted by OfficeTeam, a provider of office-staffing services and workplace research, also found that 45 percent of the 150 senior executives think employees would be more productive overall if their firms banned meetings for one day each week.
Joe Calloway, Chuck Feltz and Kris Young – authors of Never By Chance: Aligning People and Strategy Through Intentional Leadership write, "Meetings are, for most companies, a hidden asset that they rarely take full advantage of.”
So how do you get more out of your meetings? Perhaps you begin by learning from these blunders.
Top 10 Meeting Mistakes:
- Having a meeting just because you “always have a meeting”.
- Going into the meeting without stated objectives and a clearly defined outcome.
- Putting more focus on what the executives want to say than the audience needs to hear.
- Overloading the schedule without giving participants time to network, process, and just catch their breath.
- Focusing on only one mode of communicating (i.e. A podium parade of talking heads) as opposed to looking at multiple ways to communicate with and engage the audience.
- Poor coordination and communication between/among speakers, resulting in conflicting messages or unnecessary repetition.
- Making no provision for building on the meeting’s objectives and goals after the event.
- Structuring the event so that the audience is completely passive, not allowing them to interact and affect the meeting and its content.
- Not updating the meeting’s structure to reflect changes in the company, the audience or the culture at large.
- Not utilizing a production company that understands how to help you design and produce an effective, strategic event and make the most of your investment.
As the authors write in Never By Chance, "Begin With the End in Mind. There is nothing more powerful than an organization whose resources are laser - focused on a vision that every employee clearly understands — so much so that they wake up each morning knowing their role in making that vision a reality."
So before you schedule your next meeting remember; Invest the time to plan and design an event/meeting that will make a significant difference in your business.
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