Today is what I call meeting Thursday day, our first monthly all staff meeting of the new year. I hate meetings.It’s not that I don’t like meeting, I really dislike big all hand meetings. They usually drag on forever or what seems like forever. There is always someone who likes to hear their voice more than actually listen and collaborate and quite frankly they are usually boring after the first 5 minutes. If we are home on zoom at least we can do something when we lose focus but what can you do when forced to sit in an actual meeting where we can’t hide. Maybe there is something positive for zoom meetings after all.
Thankfully the meeting was on zoom, however I had to present and lead part of it which meant I actually had to pay attention. So when we planned this meeting to avoid all the issues I hate about meetings we decided on parameters- we limited the meeting time to a max of one hour. This forced us to focus on the most important issues and not to wander off. We also decided on the topics ahead of time and put everything in clear bullet points on a shared screen so everyone can see and for us not to lose focus and if we did then one of the meeting leaders would steer everything back on the right track. And the most important for the meeting leaders, we did it just before lunch and made sure to be hungry so we will finish in a timely manner and we were conscious of other people’s lunch time. I know this might seem weird when planning meetings, but we found that this helps us with keeping meetings on point. I am not advocating for anyone to go to meetings hungry, I love food, but this is a method that works for us and I am sure everyone has their own guidelines for keeping meetings effective, that is unless they love meetings or the sound of their own voice.
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