Essay/Term paper: Effective meetings

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Management

While effective meetings are essential to any organization

and to getting work done, most of the meetings I attend

leave me looking for a decision. These meetings also leave

me tired and somewhat disillusioned on the vision of the

company. I think a good meeting is not dissimilar to a

football teams huddle. It should bring people together,

facilitate decision making, assist people in taking

responsibility, energize the participants, and contribute to

building team effort within the organization.



From attending and running more than my share of

meetings I feel successful meetings are ones where attention

is paid to three areas; content, design and process.



Selection of content is crucial. At a meeting I recently

attended we discussed issues which would have been

better resolved with a couple of phone calls. At the same

time core issues remained unmentioned. I felt the meeting

would have been more productive if it was focused around

key issues, the ones that motivate the attendees and let the

meeting participants identify the priority of items to be

addressed.



I felt the second thing that went wrong with this meeting

was there was no design. This hindered the decision

making, problem solving, and the informational task at

hand. If I were running that particular meeting I would have

paid close attention and designed a







method of idea generation methods, such as brainstorming.

I would of also had decision processes, a clear agenda,

with clearly defined time frames and problem solving steps.



The third thing that went wrong with this particular meeting

was the facilitator did not make sure the individual needs of

the meeting participants were met. I would have made sure

people were participating, included in the discussions, and

made them feel there was room for their ideas and that their

ideas were welcome. I also felt that dysfunctional behaviors

were not dealt with properly and there was no positive

energy in the group. Overall I did not feel people were

committed to the task at hand. We must insure people are

enthused about the way the group is working to complete

the task.



As you can see this meeting was a disaster. It was our first

all hands meeting with the new venture group I am currently

working in. After the meeting several of us discussed the

meeting and all agreed to take our concerns to the boss.

Surprisingly, he received us well. As a matter of fact we are

getting ready to have another all hands meeting and my

boss has hired a consultant to organize the meeting. The

consultant is in the process of interviewing all of the

attendees and asking them for their input on how to make

this meeting a success. I felt very good about this process

and hope this meeting is a great success.