Excerpt

INTRODUCTION

Meetings are an essential part of the life of every orga-

nization. As a manager, one-quarter or more of your career

will be spent in group meetings. As much as 70 percent to 80

percent of your career is going to be spent face-to-face and

one-on-one with other people as well as in groups.

The more people there are in your workplace and the

greater the complexity required for the performance of

interrelated tasks, the more necessary it is for people to meet

in groups to solve problems, make decisions, share information,

and exchange views and opinions.

My favorite expression is that “meetings are management

in action.” They are a major opportunity for you to display

managerial competence (or lack thereof ) as well as to

develop your communication skills, to influence and persuade

others, and to advance the goals of the organization.

However, meetings are like advertising. It is estimated

that 50 percent of the dollars spent on advertising are

wasted, but nobody knows which 50 percent it is. It is also

estimated that half of the time spent in meetings is wasted,

but nobody knows how to eliminate the unnecessary half.

Many meetings go on too long, are ineffective, are not

results-oriented, or are vague and directionless. Nonetheless,

they cannot be avoided. Meetings remain absolutely essential

in the business environment and essential to your success.

Influence Others

In this book, you will learn how to manage and participate in

meetings more effectively so that you get the maximum

return on the time invested in meeting with other people.

As a manager, the way you plan and conduct a meeting

and the way you perform in a meeting are major factors in

your career success. In a meeting, you are being observed by

both your supervisors and your subordinates. Your superiors

especially will be very alert to the quality and quantity of

contribution you make in a meeting. If you handle yourself

well in meetings, you’ll be hallmarked as an up-and-coming

leader. You can shine and be a star contributor, or you can

bomb. It’s up to you, but you cannot hide.

If you are the leader, your subordinates will evaluate your

credibility, competence, intelligence, and your general personality

by the way you conduct meetings.

Successful executives are those who know how to run meetings

well and perform effectively in a meeting environment.

Peter Drucker said that “meetings are the primary tool of manage-

ment.” Since a major part of your career will be spent in

meetings, it is essential for your success that you learn how to

get the very most out of meetings and how to ensure that the

meetings in which you participate achieve the results desired.

Save Time

If you become excellent in participating in and conducting

meetings, you can add as much as 40 percent of lost time

back into your day for doing productive work and getting

more results, which will help you move rapidly up the corporate

ladder. But if you cannot function excellently in meetings,

you cannot be successful in management.

In this book, we are going to talk about two main types of

meetings. The first one, with which you are most familiar, is

the group meeting where people come together for a variety

of reasons. The second is the one-on-one meeting, where

you meet with one or a small number of people to negotiate,

interview, discipline, hire, fire, reward, delegate, or carry out

other managerial activities.

This book includes twenty-one key ideas derived from

many years of study and research into the organization and

coordination of effective meetings. When you begin incorporating

these ideas, or even some of them, into your meeting

management strategy, you will become so much more

effective in meetings, and probably quite quickly, that you

will not believe the difference.