Make meetings more efficient with these 12 tips

Have you ever walked through the office and heard someone complain about a meeting they had to go to? What about you – how many times have you resented having to leave your desk to head to a conference room?

Meetings have, unfortunately, gained a bit of a bad reputation. Usually, it’s not the people in the meeting that create the dread; rather, it’s the content (or lack thereof). If meetings aren’t structured correctly, people leave without knowing what the next steps are and frustrated by the unproductivity.

Leadership expert Dan Rockwell puts a number on the cost of inefficient meetings: $399 billion lost by U.S. companies every year. As the leader of an organization, you should be doing all you can to keep business costs efficient. Here are some recommendations from Rockwell to make sure your meetings aren’t wasting time and money:

  1. Eliminate back-to-back meetings. Give employees time to catch up on emails and other work before heading into another meeting. See #2, which will help, and Rockwell also suggests ending meetings 10 minutes before the top of the hour.

 

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