Managing Business Meetings Effectively

By GERARD ASSEY

One of the biggest complaints about most organizations is their meetings- they waste a lot of precious time. When employees were asked about the single greatest detractor of workplace productivity, most employees, especially managers, have almost always cited workplace meetings or meeting mismanagement. Surveys have time and again proved about people feeling that meetings aren't productive, with the most common productivity pitfalls being that they are ineffective meetings, with lack of team communication and procrastination. And remember that bad meetings lead to more bad meetings which eventually cost even more money. And this is bad news for organizations.

Meetings are therefore vital for management and communication. Meetings can be the very central hub or key to a place of decisions and action where an organization's culture, credibility and climate will perpetuate itself. 

Therefore, this little but powerful book: Managing Business Meetings Effectively will help you get a complete hold of Managing and Running Meetings in an Efficient, Productive and Focused manner , covering right from the planning till the conducting and follow-up, covering helpful tools, techniques and processes. Knowing how to get the most from meetings is therefore an important skill that every employee should possess, especially as they keep moving up the ladder, and this book can help you do so!

• Language: English
• Publisher: GERARD ASSEY
• Release date: Sep 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215301432

Book preview

Gerard Assey

Managing

Business Meetings Effectively

By

Gerard Assey

© Copyright 2022 by Author

Publishing Agency:

Collection Skills

19/18, Palli Arasan Street

Anna Nagar East

Chennai - 600 102

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means- electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the author.

Content

Preface

Objectives of this Book: What will this Book help you Achieve?

What is a Meeting?

Categories and Types of Meetings

Why have Meetings? Importance of Meetings

Are Meetings welcome most of the Time? Pitfalls and Frustrations of Bad Meetings

Pre-Meeting Preparation

-Getting your Objective/Purpose Right

-Who Should Attend?

-Who Does What? Meeting Roles

-The Agenda

-Timings-Start and Finish

-The Venue and Environment

-The Equipment, Facilities and other 

Arrangements

-Visual Aids

-PowerPoint

The Meeting

-Preparing for a Successful Meeting-

Participants/ Leader

-Leading the Meeting

-The Key Qualities/ Attributes of an Effective

Chairperson/ Leader

-Starting the Meeting on a Positive Note-

Getting it off to a Good Start

-Encouraging Interaction and Prompting

Discussion

-Good Questioning and Listening Skills are KEY!

-Staying Focused, Concentrated and Moving

Forward

-Managing Difficult and Challenging Participants

-The Minutes of the Meeting

Closure- Tips for Concluding the Meeting

Successfully

Post Meeting

Conclusion

About the Author

Preface

One of the biggest complaints about most organizations is their meetings- they waste a lot of precious time. When employees were asked about the single greatest detractor of workplace productivity, most employees, especially managers, have almost always cited workplace meetings or meeting mismanagement.

Surveys have time and again proved about people feeling that meetings aren’t productive, with the most common productivity pitfalls being that they are ineffective meetings, with lack of team communication and procrastination. And remember that bad meetings lead to more bad meetings which eventually cost even more money. And this is bad news for organizations.

And there are so many different kinds of meetings! From staff meetings to task forces to brainstorming to sales meeting to ceremonial meetings and if we have unprofessional, boring, and time-wasting meetings, then people begin to believe that this is an unprofessional and boring company that does not care about time and its people, thus affecting its credibility out in the market. On the other hand, great meetings tell the employees, customers and vendors that this is a professional and excellent organization to be working for!

Meetings are therefore vital for management and communication. A Meeting can be an excellent way to interact with coworkers, make decisions and plans, solve problems, and communicate information. Properly run meetings save time, increase motivation, productivity, and solve problems. Meetings create new ideas and initiatives. Meetings help to achieve buy-in. Meetings diffuse conflicts in a way that emails and memos cannot. Meetings help steer management and the organization on the right track. That's why meetings are so useful. Meetings can be the very central hub or key to a place of decisions and action where an organization’s culture, credibility and climate will perpetuate itself. 

As you will see, Meetings serve many useful purposes but can be a waste of time if not properly conducted. Therefore, this little but powerful book: Managing Business Meetings Effectively will help you get a complete hold of Managing and Running Meetings in an Efficient, Productive and Focused manner by covering the various types of Meetings, the Causes of Frustration in Meetings, Mismanaged Meetings, right up to Planning and Managing of Meetings Professionally, Problems that can arise in Meetings, What can be done and What shouldn’t be done including Preventive Methods of handling Excessive Participation, Non Participation, Side Conversations and Antagonistic and Negative Attitudes too, It will also cover extensively the Preparing of an Agenda and The Minutes, with a lot more helpful tools and processes.

Meetings are among the most expensive forms of communication, so it's essential to make the investment worthwhile. Knowing how to get the most from meetings is therefore an important skill that every employee should possess, especially as they keep moving up the ladder, and this book can help you do so!

Objectives of this Book: What will this Book help you Achieve?

Reading this Book and putting the techniques, skills and processes in place can help you and your organization in several ways:

✓  You'll discover a process for preparing effective meetings by establishing clear purposes and objectives that will provide an understanding of essential requirements for making them more effective,

✓  It will help to plan and manage orderly and effective meetings that are engaging and don't last too long.

✓  You will learn the principles, tools, and techniques that can help make meetings more productive and effective, by enabling members participate actively and constructively

✓  You will learn to deal with people's conflicting and differing styles, give responsibility, tackle complex issues, and deal with different behaviors during meetings.

✓  If you struggle to start meetings on the right note, this book