How to Lead, 4th Edition

Chapter 35

Making meetings work

Meetings are a wonderful substitute for work or responsibility. They are also the essence of management – they consume time and can have high impact. So it pays to have effective meetings, to minimise wasted time and maximise impact. Now think of what proportion of the meetings you have to attend is truly effective. You may be lucky, in which case move on to the next section. You may be like the majority of managers who find too much of a limited day being drained away in ineffective meetings.

Meetings, like liquorice allsorts, come in all shapes and sizes. They range from informal one-to-one meetings to major conferences, from formal decision-making meetings of the board to brainstorming meetings of the staff. ...