Meetings
How do you get out of unproductive meetings? It can be tough and you do not want to offend a peer. I have decided after reading this I will delegate such meetings to a subordinate.
The meetings at my work rarely concern me. The meeting minutes are always published after the meeting so I scan over them to see if there is any information that is important to me.
Manuel,
Have you made recommendations to those who plan the meetings and set the agendas?
Jeffrey Schillinger
We are forced to go to meetings that seem like the info was copied and pasted directly from the internet. Since we still process all our paperwork by hand and not electronically it puts a huge dampener on my work. I wish there was a way to email the info and still be able to receive time credit for attending.
I agree an agenda for a meeting would work well, we have instructor meetings every week and we get and agenda, each team of instructors has there own meetings and there is no agendaand I leave thinking that I wasted my time. I'm going to suggest an agenda next time.
The agenda review was a great tip! I was even able to identify people that could go in my place that may have had more input on topics or a higher need for the information being discussed.
Hi Lisa,
We did the same thing. We always had two meetings a week. One for retention and one for staff/director meetings. The information in the retention meeting was always rediscussed in the our main meeting. The retention meeting could last 10 minutes, but always went into an hour because the chit-chatting that always went on. It was so silly to have two meetings when you were rehashing the same information two days later. This was our routine for three years! Then we got a new boss. Once he saw how time consuming it was for us to have two meetings, he dropped the retention meeting and added it to our agenda for our main meeting. Plus, in order to keep up to date on our retention numbers, we utilize email daily regarding our absent students and the contact we have with them. It's been great!
Hi Joseph
I think attending meetinga is essential to be on top of things. I take it as an oppurtunity to network with fellow colleages and put my point of view across.
Elizabeth,
Thanks. This makes a lot of sense.
Jeffrey Schillinger
We have a small office staff of 5 and it works well with that number. If we have larger meetings, it's easier to veer off course, but the group of 5 has been successful. In lieu of meetings, we will frequently have quick 5 minute speakerphone calls to update the staff on items they need to know ASAP. Our staff works in 2 different offices, so this definately reduces time it would take to gather together in one spot for a meeting. I find that many people will email these need-to-know-now items, but I do like to speak with everyone as well and it gets the information to them faster. This wouldn't work in many different business settings, but is effective in ours.
Elizabeth,
Thanks. We have had good luck doing 1:1 meetings this way. Sometimes it does not work well for us in larger settings.
Jeffrey Schillinger
We prefer to run our meetings, which are fairly infrequent, during lunch time. Everyone brings their lunch or we may order in. We are able to take care of having lunch and covering meeting items at the same time. When the group starts
chatting, we quickly stop and return to the agenda. Lunch meetings work very well for our staff.
Lisa,
Good points. Fewer, well-run meetings can be much more valuable.
Jeffrey Schillinger
This is a very tough area. Some meetings are clearly not needed, and a waste of time. We had an issue of too many meetings. We spoke to our supervisor of a better method of managing meetings. We ended up with one longer meeting per week- rather than several short ones. Often, speaking to the organizer can help create options that both parties are content with- and the works still gets done!
Meetings can be huge time wasters. Ask for an agenda that lists all of the topics to be discussed. This may help the meeting organizer design more productive meetings.
Nicole,
I would caution one who is looking at this strategy. Some folks get very upset when others in the meeting are working rather than listening. Some companies have banned computers from meetings.
Jeffrey Schillinger
Instead of getting out of the meeting, if you are able to multitask, perhaps you can bring your computer/ipad/paperwork and do other work in your meeting. That way you attend the meeting so no one gets offended and you get your work done at the same time.
After I reread the question, I really id not answer. I think you evaluate if the meeting will be effective and try to offer an explanation to why you cannot attend. This would work with meetings that are not required. Please understand-there are some meetings you will not get out of and I recognize that fact.
I think always requesting an agenda was a great idea in this class. This way you can assess whether the meeting is valuable regarding your goals. I also think you can decide if you can offer anything to the meeting. I do believe that some meetings are necessary to keep people working productively. This was an informative course.
Joseph,
Sometimes not going is the best way to address this. We need to be careful that we do not offend those that call the meeting or force our subordinate to waste his time.
Jeffrey Schillinger
