Seth Godin, best-selling author, lecturer, blogger, founder of Squidoo.com, etc., is not alone in thinking that American businesses have a "meeting problem."
People across the country are called together for various reasons (many times those reasons escape attendees) and often spend a great deal of time while accomplishing nada.
On his blog, Mr. Godin offers nine recommendations for solving the problem. He promises a "full refund" if after a week of using his system, meetings at your company don't improve. Here's the list as condensed by moi.
- Severity of problems/challenges etc. vary so meeting lengths should.
- Meetings should be scheduled in five-minute increments. If the person needs more than 20-minutes total than he/she better have a really good reason.
- Prepare to be productive. Provide attendees with study materials before each meeting.
- Get rid of all chairs from the meeting room. Mr. Godin said he's "serious" about this one.
- If someone comes in two-minutes or more later than the last person in the room, they need to pay a $10 fine to the coffee fund.
- Use an egg timer. When it rings the meeting is over.
- The person calling the meeting is required within 10-minutes of the meeting ending to send a short summary with action items for attendees.
- Create a place (e.g. white board or web page) for meeting attendees to rate meetings and meeting leaders on a scale of one to five to evaluate usefulness. Mr. Godin writes, "Watch what happens."
- If you're not bringing anything to the meeting, excuse yourself and leave. You won't miss anything because the summary will be available 10 minutes after the meeting adjourns.
Discussion Questions: Have meetings gotten out of control at your company? Which of Seth Godin's recommendations do you like most/least? What are your recommendations for getting the most out of meetings?