Meetings are the bane of organizations, or at least they can be. Necessary, valuable, and productive when done right, but that is the case less often than not. The issue is not the meeting itself but instead our preparation for the meeting.
You host a dinner party, and you do not know who the guests are or why you invited them. When the first person arrives, you consider what you will prepare and then investigate what you may have available to eat and drink. Or you gather together for the supposed dinner and then plan to have another dinner at a future date. Would that dinner be a success? Will your guests want to come back?
We call meetings with no agenda, purpose, or intended outcome. We do not inform participants beforehand how to prepare, nor their role. When the meeting labors on, lacks focus and direction, we label the meeting as the issue?
The success of meetings is in the preparation. A little planning and deliberation will create more meaningful experiences for participants and result in far better outcomes. For unplanned meetings, we may be best off deciding whether we should attend or not since the goal and our potential contribution are unclear – after all, we are likely busy, and time is a precious resource.
