Choose excellence: Ban boring business meetings

Have you ever been in a business meeting that rivaled reruns of the Weather Channel as the worst waste of your time?

You know the drill. Everyone shuffled in and, after greeting each other with slopping coffee and inane conversation-starters, the minutes began their slow-motion grating over the knobby neurons of your mind, beckoning one life response: sleep.

The leader does not know where he or she is going, how to get there or what to look for upon arrival.

This routine is so odious that 62 percent of all management personnel say that meetings are the biggest wastes of their time.

Meetings remind me of playing golf: You get mildly excited about doing it again, but, about the fifth hole, you wonder why you keep coming back.

There is a better way. Getting a group of people together to enhance communication and productivity is a good idea. It is an equally bad idea to conduct meetings just for the hello-of-it. As a matter of fact, you probably should not even hold a meeting unless you can meet these four criteria:

?First, if the meeting is informational, are there other ways to disperse the data?

Here is where you start getting back the big-bucks investment you have made in e-mail, intranet, video-conferencing, conference calling and Post-it notes.

Through my laptop screen I am hearing you right now, "Yeah, right. What if they don't read it or just skip by it or put it in some dark, dank drawer?"

Well, I guess they just don't get it, do they? I am assuming you are working with adults who decide what they will suck into their brains, and if they don't think it is important then they pay the consequences. It really is pretty simple stuff.

?Second, are the right people present for the meeting?

If you have a room filled with people who are information-challenged (they don't know paradigm shifts from shinola), what is the value in going ahead with this conclave? If these participants do not have a vested interest or decision-making ability, this is a poor excuse for a meeting.

?Third, is the meeting an anthropomorphized rubber stamp?

When the decision has or will be made by some kingmaker, this meeting is a patronizing attempt to get buy-in. Furthermore, if the participants are in an advisory role, they should be listened to and then contacted again about what what their input meant to the final decision.

?Fourth, is the meeting just for the screaming minority?

Sometimes meetings are conducted to publicly deal with corporate cretins who someone did not have the fortitude to speak to individually. It quickly becomes apparent to the compliant majority they are being used to grease the squeaky wheels.

After looking at those criteria, let's assume the meeting is on. Here are some drop-dead ideas to get a lot of work done in a small amount of time with a lot of people present.

If this is a meeting you will be facilitating, plan the agenda yourself. There is nothing worse than being saddled with subjects with which you have no interest or ability. Your lack of enthusiasm becomes a walking sandwich board broadcasting, "Get ready to be bored."

Announce a meeting with a beginning and an ending time and never, ever violate these parameters. If participants are not in the room, get started. If someone is getting long-winded announce, in keeping with your respect for the time of others, the meeting will conclude after the next sentence.

Conduct all team meetings in the standing position. You will be surprised how quickly everyone can transact business if there are no chairs or tables to drape limbs and brains over.

Dismiss people after they have made a contribution so they can get back to other work.

When you know a decision cannot be made without supporting research, assign the task well in advance. Distribute data to the group for its consideration before coming to the meeting.

Encourage participants who will be making a presentation to have written notes to speed the process.

When a decision is necessary, prepare the participants for a verbal polling if simple majority rules. If you are using consensus, ask each person for a summary statement which should not exceed one minute.

Boring, dumb and nonproductive business meetings don't just happen they are a choice. We can choose excellence in how a business group functions or we can choose to put everyone to sleep and make reruns of the Weather Channel actually seem enchanting.

(Dr. Cal LeMon solves organizational problems with customized training and consulting. His company, The Executive Edge, can be contacted through the Springfield Business Journal by writing to PO Box 1365, Springfield 65801, or via e-mail at

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