Meetings, meetings, and more meetings! As you climb higher on the corporate ladder, and your business grows, meetings will become an inevitable part of your life.
Meetings are like a double sword—it can either waste your time or can help you scale up your business. It all depends upon how effective you are in conducting meetings.
Chanakya gives us some tips and suggestions on this issue: “He should declare without loss of time what is in the king’s interest.” (5.4.11)
The following are also some tips that can help you at meetings:
Have an agenda
Most meetings end up as a big waste of time because there is no clear agenda. The purpose of the meeting has to be clear. As given above, the best meetings are the ones that take into consideration the vision of the company, or what is of interest to the seniors.
Preparing an agenda gives a sense of direction for the meeting. If you are the one who is the organiser, make it a point that the agenda is clearly communicated to others. Also, see to it that the participants are told in advance about the day, time and venue of the meeting to have maximum attendance and least confusion.
As Bill Gates wrote it in his book, Business at the speed of thought, “Those meetings that are planned well in advance are the most effective ones.”
Most importantly, as the meeting comes towards the end, make an action plan. Take decisions and execute them.
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