No one wants to attend a dull, unproductive meeting. Here's how to make yours engaging and successful. Without an efficient leader, meetings can quickly become a soul-sucking waste of time for anyone stuck in a seat around a conference table.
"Meetings take up a lot of people's time, and they are often inefficient," says Ben Dattner, PhD, an executive coach and adjunct psychology professor at New York University. "There aren't clear agendas and timetables, and they tend to ramble and not achieve their goals. The leader should be ultimately accountable for having a well-run meeting, but everyone who attends the meeting has a role to play." U.S. employees spend an average of nine hours a week preparing for or attending team meetings, but more than a third of employees believe those meetings are a waste of time, according to a nationwide poll by Clarizen, a software company. Almost half of employees would rather do any unpleasant activity rather than sit through a meeting, including waiting in line at the DMV or watching paint dry, the poll found. Meetings can feel like a group therapy session for a leader who must deal with vastly different personalities and potential land mines from office or university politics, Dattner says. "In a way, meetings are like a microcosm of the team dynamic," he says. "It's always an art rather than a science on how you balance being flexible and open without being disorganized or meandering." Read more...
