Studies show that millions of meetings are held each day in the United States and thousands of dollars are spent per meeting hour where meetings include multiple executives as attendees. Are all these meetings a business investment or a waste of time? Sadly, many of those same studies indicate that managers who attended meetings felt that up to half their time had been wasted. If meetings are important enough to run, why don’t the heads of the organization insist on being better leaders?
Can the gift of better meetings be this year’s top management award? If meeting leaders can learn to accomplish more in the same amount of time or less, the answer is definitely yes. If the answer is yes, how can this gift of better meetings come about?
There are many good training courses and books on meeting management. When looking for a good meeting leadership course, in addition to using the words “meeting management,” look for courses that include some type of leadership or facilitate in the course title. Sometimes meeting management course titles appear to be disguised as something else, or the meetings training is a component of a larger package offered as a more extensive workshop. The benefit of taking a course is the concentrated effort in learning the tools and techniques along with networking and ideas from other course participants who have the same experiences in the business world. The main disadvantage is the time away from work to attend the course, which is why many do not take advantage of this formal training option.
Reading and following a book on meeting management is a viable alternative to formal training, if the meeting leader agrees to follow the guidelines and the book includes usable examples or forms. An option with examples and forms is the new book “RA! RA! A Meeting Wizard’s Approach” (ISBN 1-4196-5367-9). This book and others on meeting management can be purchased through Amazon or ordered at bookstores. The main advantage of informal book learning is that it is portable and can be read in or out of business hours using small scattered time segments rather than consecutive hours. The books often include the same benefit of tips, tools, and techniques, but in a different format than that found in a formal course. The downside could be the lack of networking and discussion with other course participants who are learning the leadership material from the meeting at the same time. However, this disadvantage can be overcome by forming a book study group in the workplace or by having a regular meeting team explore the book materials and learn better meeting management together.
Going back to the meeting studies, they also show that the number of meetings is increasing and their duration as well. To save money, time, and management worries, offer bosses the gift of better meetings as a direction to higher profits and higher productivity. Better meetings lead to more productive employees, less time, and lower dollar costs, and lower costs mean higher profit margins. Make meetings a business investment rather than a waste of time reading a book or attending a course so more people can become better meeting leaders. Give and share the gift of better meetings this year.
