Five Do’s and Don’ts for Business, Team, or Government Meetings

Below are five quick Do’s and Don’ts for Meetings.  I know all of these and more details on how they work are in my book R.A!R.A! A Meeting Wizard’s Approach (on Amazon #ad in print and ebook) and associated podcasts.

1. Do make your meetings short and productive.  This will be appreciated by everyone in the meeting.  Short, focused meetings are more likely to accomplish the goal of the meeting than longer ones that drag on with too much discussion and revisiting of issues.  
2. Do not fall into the scheduled meeting trap.  In other words, just because you have a weekly meeting on the calendar, you should not hold it if no participation is required or if there is nothing new to share at this time. 
3. Do start your meeting with an agenda, allow a few minutes to review and agree to it before going forward.  This can stop people from adding in new items that may eat up your time.  Make sure the most important items are at the beginning of the agenda so they get covered even if you run out of time. 
4. Do not recap what has already been covered, even if people show up late to the meeting. Instead have your agenda visible, the late person can use it to catch up to where you are in the meeting.  If they have questions about something they missed, they can ask the meeting leader during a break or after the meeting ends.
5. Do start and end your meetings on-time regardless of who is there.  Everyone has other priorities and their time should not be taken for granted.  Meetings that often start late or always overrun the allotted time, make the meeting leader look disorganized as well.

For a baker’s dozen Do’s and Don’ts, read my Meeting Manners article.