May I commend a book by Patrick Lencioni? It’s called: “Death By Meeting.” In it, the author argues that meetings should be more fun than going to the movies and shows why they typically aren’t. I’m sure you can find the book on Amazon.

Here’s what he says: “If I didn’t have to go to meetings, I’d like my job a lot more.”

“It’s a remark I’ve heard from many of the leaders I’ve worked with over the years. I used to think that it was understandable - even humorous - but I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s actually a sad comment on the state of our business culture.

“Imagine hearing a surgeon saying to a nurse before surgery, “If I didn’t have to operate on people, I might actually like this job.” Or a symphony conductor preparing for a performance: “If it weren’t for these concerts, I would enjoy my work more.” Or even a professional baseball player: “I’d love my job if I didn’t have to play in these games.”

“But there is hope. By taking a contrarian, nontraditional view of meetings, and following a few specific guidelines that have nothing to do with video-conferencing, interactive software or Robert’s Rules of Order, we can transform what is now painful and tedious into something productive, compelling, and even energizing. In the process, we can also differentiate ourselves from our competitors who continue to waste time, energy and enthusiasm lamenting the drudgery of meetings.”

Make Your Meetings…Better!…

Merlin, over at 43Folders, offers some no-nonsense advice for being able to add words like effective, necessary, and worthwhile, when describing your meetings. This is good stuff. He opens his post by saying……thought I’d share a few of my own…

[…] 9 tips for running more productive meetings | 43 Folders […]

I will have a stick near my place to hit someone’s hands. People seems to be against the whole “don’t bring cellphone” thing, and it’s really annoying. They even hide them on their hands or their clothes. Five minutes man, just five minutes.

Another good tip may be this: CLOSE your drinks, I hate when a guy comes to the office, sit on the meeting table with a bottled water and instead of closing the darn thing, this people just put it on the table. What’s next? well, they usually put it above a paper and when they move that paper to see the one below… well, you can hear me scream on my wet notes.

CLOSE YOUR DRINKS, that’s another one. Drink, close it, back to the table. Drink, close it, back to the table. I know it’s hard for some people! ;)

Annoyingly, the worst grazers at my company all have SVP in front of their titles—not much chance of convincing them to leave the crackberries on their desk. But I suspect they would be less inclined to check the damned things if something interesting was going on in the actual meeting.

9 tips for running more productive meetings…

9 tips for running more productive meetings - Merlinn Mann with some practical advice on keeping things running - a useful add-on to the old "Make everyone in the meeting drink 16 oz of water as the meeting begins. Conduct……

I worked for a guy who figured out the combined salary per minute of everyone in the room and announced it at the beginning of the meeting. He was trying to get a rule going with people having to report the salary costs of meetings they convened. Don’t know how far that got because I had left by then.

Video conference calls are deadly. You can’t knit or do other work during the parts that don’t concern you.

[…] 9 tips for running more productive meetings | 43 Folders By JHM Tips for running meetings - and in the comments I add to keep them short: 9 tips for running more productive meetings | 43 Folders […]

Great tips. I like the “No electronic grazing. Period.” point - but how do you convince people not to take their phones or laptops with them? People have embraced cellphones so tightly that even an ordinary phone call is — by default — important enough to break away from a meeting.

I’ve sensed that this breaks meetings, too, but have no idea of stopping it. People consider you to be rude if you complain about it. And trying to convince the head of the meetings is no good either - he is the one most dedicated to “electronic grazing”.

Adding to the mix, perhaps consider addressing agenda items first and putting non-agenda items brought up at the beginning of the meeting until last. A) you might answer the question during the meeting and B) It protects the meeting from sidetracking. After all, you came to address the agenda’s items.

Mislav- Perhaps try enforcing the rule in a slightly different manner. If you must answer your cell phone, do so, but you must leave the room and can’t come back in. Clearly, if the phone call is important enough, you can take it. If it isn’t, then you’re not likely to leave to answer it.

Good point to schedule Bio breaks. A few minutes to hit the bathroom, stretch, or get a cup of something is always appreciated. There’s no polite way to take a bathroom break as a junior employee…