5 Characteristics of a Highly Effective Meeting | Don't Accept Every Meeting You are Invited to

On average, we spend SEVEN YEARS of our entire lifetime and $37B of the US economy every year just in unproductive and boring meetings. Imagine what we could have done with those precious resources. According to Grady, most office workers have this involuntary reflex where they just keep accepting meeting invitations without even thinking why or what the meeting is all about.

If you receive another one of these invitations, you might want to pause and keep an eye out if the meeting hold these five characteristics (or if you are heading the meeting, here are guidelines to follow!):

1. Everyone's input is needed.

If you are the head of the supposed meeting and the sole agenda is just updating the team, just send an email so that they can read it at their own time.

2. The meeting is small and focused.

You would not want to accept meeting invitations with a very long invite list. The most value that you could get in participating in such is networking and potentially shaking hands with the executives (which in itself is VERY VALUABLE especially when you're new to the company / organization, but the pace of a large meeting itself is really slow and inefficient).

3. There are prep materials and an agenda.

This way, all participants can prepare beforehand so that they can give high quality input to the meeting. Less time will be allotted for briefing; hence, the participants can invest their time brainstorming. In reviewing the agenda, remember that there must be a worthwhile goal to achieve by the end of the meeting.

4. Someone is moderating.

The head of the meeting should be moderating and not just "letting the ideas flow." An effective meeting is on time and keeps track of the schedule as to give respect to the time of others.

5. There is proper task delegation.

If no concrete tasks are assigned (unless it is an evaluation / deliberation meeting), all the ideas will die down. Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of VaynerMedia, always loves to say, "Ideas are sh*t, but execution is the game."

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BONUS: When heading a meeting, try to converse with the participants after the meeting and explore how future meetings could be more effective. It pays off to improve something you do on a regular basis.

WARNING: If you are new to the company / organization, I suggest you attend as many meetings as possible (even if you now know how to spot the boring ones) as to expand your networking opportunities, meet new people, and make a good first impression.

As an executive or a high ranking official, you have too much on your plate and have the leverage to put off meetings, but do so wisely. You also have the opportunity to change your meeting culture. Make this change.

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If you've found value in this blog, please give an upvote as to help create quality posts in the future. If not, please do give a feedback on how my future posts can be improved :) If there are more characteristics that you think should have been included in this list, feel free to voice it out in the comments below - I'll be listening. Either way, thank you for reaching the end of this post, and please follow my account. I'll be posting chapter summaries of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People pretty soon. 'Til next time :D

References:

[1] "How to save the world (or at least yourself) from bad meetings", a TED talk by David Grady

[2] "No More Flipping Meetings" by Brent Stubbs

[3] "Make Meetings Suck Less", MH Philippines magazine issued Oct 2014

[4] Work Happy: What Great Bosses Know by Jill Geisler

[5] It's Okay to Manage Your Boss by Bruce Tulgan