I love my colleagues. They are great human beings and do not really waste time (if anything, I am the social being of the group who they hate to see coming down the hall at times). Being in the world of academia however, death by a 1000 meetings is common and quite often painful. As I have moved into more leadership roles, I have really taken a lot of time to think about how to make meeting times more productive. So when I watch this TED talk by David Grady it really made me think of how I am doing business so to speak.
With this in mind, I give you my rules going forward for meetings that I am a part of.
Agendas go out at least 48 hours before the meeting.
Every meeting must have at least three actionable items.
Meetings will take no longer than 45 minutes (to which I will add an optional 15 minutes for networking/socialization).
Try to avoid meeting time sucks (like getting off on tangents, exploring outside topics and gossip).
Make sure the technology works before entering the room.
Keep the mood of one of trying to move forward with positive goals in mind.
These are my rules. What are your meeting rules?
