The Rules of Management, 4th Edition

RULE 4

Hold effective meetings . . .

We’ve all been to them – the meetings that drag on, people who ramble, agendas written on the back of an envelope or spur of the moment, any-other-business surprises, lack of information, insufficient notice.

As a manager you will have to hold meetings. Make them effective. Decide in advance what the objective of the meeting is and make sure you meet that objective.

Basically, meetings have only four purposes:

• to create and fuse a team
• to impart information
• to brainstorm ideas (and make decisions)
• to collect information (and make decisions).

Some meetings might well take in one or more of these, but you should still be aware of that and add it into your objective. If your meeting is to impart information, ...