How to Run Better Meetings

To Meeting Managers: You girls and lads who put on meetings: I'm giving you a new title, "Meeting Manager" Maybe you never thought of yourself as a meeting manager. But let's say you are the one in the office the boss calls in and says, "Joe, I want to tell all the people in the office about our new ABC plan. We'll have Pete tell them about A, Ken or Tommy can tell about B, and I'll handle the C. But you organize it all. Let's get together at 3:00 this afternoon to discuss it." O.K., who's managing that meeting? You are, aren't you? Then let's say you are the president or secretary of a club. You have a meeting planned for next month. You know that if the meeting is to be organized, you had better do most of the work. And so you get the speaker, plan the notice, get it in the mail, arrange for the meeting room, take care of the other details, take the criticism if everything doesn't go right. O.K., who is managing that meeting? You are, aren't you? Perhaps it's our nth freedom, the right to hold meetings. We Americans must hold a few million every week. Recently I read that one company was making a survey to determine the value of the meetings held by the company personnel. How were they making the survey? By a series of meetings, of course. Before you laugh ask yourself, "How could they do it better?" Since all of us show by our actions that we like to go to meetings, there are a lot of meeting managers just like you who must put these shows on the stage. And so it is for you, you girls and lads who put on those million or more meetings every week, that these suggestions, thoughts, and ideas are brought together. Read on and when you find one that might fit your group, try it. If it works, great. If it doesn't work, mark yourself "A" for effort. But don't discourage easily, try another, and another. In no time at all you'll learn to select the ones made to measure for your group. The group will like your meetings and you'll get a reputation as a Meeting Manager who knows his stuff. There's no thrill like the one you feel when the member says," Joe you put on a good show.