What is an Effective Meeting?

When meetings aren’t run well — or when there are too many of them — decision-making becomes slower and the quality of decisions suffers. And when there are too many meetings, time management becomes a major issue. These are some ways to achieve a balance between effective meetings and good time management: Have a time management budget for meetings and a process for allocating it, ensure that individuals routinely measure and manage their time in meetings, evaluate the necessity of standing meetings, and consider time when introducing organizational change, which will require an overabundance of meetings.

Here is how to ensure your meetings are run efficiently. First, assign each meeting to a category — decision-making meetings, creative solutions and coordination meetings, or information-gathering meetings. Second, ask these questions when scheduling a meeting: Should this even be a meeting? What is this meeting for? What is everyone’s role? Third, even if a meeting has a clear purpose, it’s of little use if no one has been assigned to make decisions. No matter whether it’s clear who the decider is, it’s a mistake to hold a meeting when people are unsure of “who” is doing “what.” Meeting participants should be divided into four roles: decision-makers, advisers, recommenders and execution partners. Remember, inefficient meetings waste time and create distraction and confusion. You don’t want participants’ after-the-meeting response to be “This meeting should have been an email.”