Meetings

Meetings are important for any size organization. It allows the company to share information, collect feedback, and make important decisions. Meetings help people feel trusted, welcomed, and most importantly, to be given an opportunity to be part of the decision making process. While meetings are important for companies, it is equally important to start meetings on time. Often times, when organizations have meetings, they wait for everyone to arrive before starting the meeting. This sends a signal to the attendees that it is ok to come to the meeting late. It is important to communicate in advance the timing of the meeting, allowing the meeting to start promptly. This will allow the attendees to take the meeting more seriously and to attend on time. 

Preparation for a Meeting 

Meetings should be prepared well in advance. A clear agenda should be written in advance to stimulate critical thinking and interactions. This can help provide a memorable gathering and lively conversations. It is also equally important for the meeting to remain on topic. Often times, managers hold meetings without a clear purpose. This allows the meeting to go in many different directions creating distractions. Furthermore, when the meetings starts, it should be conducted with a policy that the attendees cannot use their phones unless there is an emergency.  The manager should make it clear in the agenda how long the meeting will last and the allotted time for each topic. The key point is for leaders to break down the agenda into small elements that can be managed. 

Try telling the Truth

There's nothing more energizing to a corporation than for people to start telling the truth. Will Schultz popularized truth-telling encounter groups in the 1960's. One of the immediate results he found was that meetings were shorter. Previous meetings that lasted hours was now just 20 minutes. "We just say what we want to say, we don't have to spend a lot of time and energy not saying something, "Lies and secrets are poisons in organizations" said one of the executives. When people start telling the truth, you see almost immediate reductions in mistakes and increases in productivity.

Conclusion 

       Meetings can play a vital role for companies to help provide direction. It can help answer many unanswered questions. Setting clear rules and then helping to stimulate critical thinking is important during the meeting process. People that attend meetings late create a distraction for others. One of the reasons people come late to meetings is because the meeting are not well planned. They don’t see the value in the meetings or they may feel that their contributions won’t be acknowledged. It is important to schedule meetings on time, be truthful, outline a clear agenda and value everyone’s opinion.