Running Effective Meetings For Dummies

Chapter 8

Designing the Meeting to Match Your Goals

IN THIS CHAPTER

Selecting the best meeting format based on your attendees

Making your meeting space comfortable

Timing your meeting right

Afew days ago, Joe received an invite from one of the leaders in his organization to join them and another person for a 30-minute meeting. The invitation just listed the attendees. The purpose was not identified. No agenda was shared. A day or so before the meeting, Joe asked one of the attendees what the meeting was about, and they didn’t know either. That’s not usually a good sign.

The meeting was a virtual meeting. The three participants arrived and some small talk ensued. A few minutes past start time, they finally identified the purpose of the meeting, to share some bad news for Joe. (Don’t worry Joe still has a job!)

What did they do wrong? Take a minute. If you’ve read any of the other chapters in this book, these few details about the meeting may cue you to a few issues.

First, they didn’t identify a purpose for the meeting ahead of the meeting (Chapter 7). Second, they did not share an agenda (Chapter 8). Third, they chose a less rich medium for communicating bad news (Chapter 5). Fourth, ...