Opening Statement

The only way meetings are going to be successful is if there is progress

and the only way to get progress is for people to get ideas

and the only way people are going to get ideas is for you to make them have ideas.

Introduction

Over the next 12 months you’ll probably attend at least a dozen meetings, and possibly 50 or 100 meetings - or even more if you’re in meetings every day.

Any one of these meetings could make a big difference to your career. The sum total of a year’s meetings most definitely will make a difference to your career.

So is this going to be your most successful year yet?

It should and it can!

At the same time we have to recognise that in real life there are always obstacles to overcome.

For example, there are many meetings that serve no purpose other than to rubber stamp progress, act as a talking shop, or put a few more ticks in boxes.

While these sort of meetings never amount to much, try imagining that you had the power to turn things round, to make your meetings more successful.

Imagine that you could be a part of meetings where things really happen.

Imagine driving up the quality of your meetings.

Even if your meetings are mostly productive, you’d still like to do better.

Over the following pages I’ll show you how to run meetings where things can really happen.

And if things really happen in your meetings it follows that things will really happen to you too.

It doesn’t matter what your job is, whether you’re in selling, or human resources, or production, or have a seat on the board.

What matters is that your meetings become more productive, more useful and more fulfilling for you, your colleagues, and the organisation you’re involved with.

If the quality of your meetings can go up, and the output can go up, then you’ll go up with them too.
So long as you improve your batting average and make more of your meetings then sooner or later your organisation is going to make more of you.

Exercise 1:

Let’s start by taking stock of your situation, and establishing some baseline data.

How many meetings do you attend each year?

Write this down as, say:

I attend about 2 or 3 meetings a week, 10 per month and overall 120 meetings per year.

Check your Outlook diary to verify if you’re not sure

What proportion of these could be improved:

• Most

• Some

• Few

Explain your choice in 24 words or less, and write it down as in:

Some of my meetings could be improved because ..... (up to 24 words) .....

Write this down in your notebook, as this is your baseline data.

> Why meetings matter