Seth’s Blog really came home to me this morning. I read Seth Godin’s blog almost every day because I always learn something new that is both useful and thought-provoking. Very little business advice consistently meets both of these standards that I attribute to Seth. This morning I read his post “The Answer is Simple”. In two […]
The National Bureau of Economic Research marked June 2009 as the end of the recession that began in December 2007, and the beginning of an expansion. The recession lasted 18 months, which makes it the longest of any recession since World War II. And for small business owners and their key employees, it’s been a […]
What happens after a meeting is over? Do you have quick and easy ways to share the outcomes and next steps, both with people who were there and others with a “need to know” who weren’t there? Meetings are a huge waste of time if you don’t share the outcomes and follow up on the […]
How many times have you come out of a meeting with more work than you had before you went in? And just having lost an hour or two or more of time in which to get it done? It’s no wonder busy people hate meetings! The answer to that dilemma is to change the way […]
Documentation of meetings causes major delays in action at many companies. The larger the company, the more likely it is to have rules about meeting minutes or records: who is in charge of producing them, who needs to approve the final form, how they are circulated, where they are stored, and so forth. Smaller companies […]
The delightful phrase repeated by a recorded voice in the London tube warns passengers to “mind the gap.” If you speak “American,” typically you find this quaint and amusing. We of course would say something more foreboding and less memorable: Warning: Severe injury or death is possible if you cross this line. The English are […]
In a traditional meeting format, everyone takes their own notes, or someone is assigned responsibilities as a note taker, maybe circulating or posting “minutes” of the meeting. I have worked with companies in which the process of getting meeting minutes approved for publication took weeks! In the meantime, people forget what was decided or what […]
I’ve been blogging about how to reduce the time you spend in meetings and how to make the meetings that you need more productive. If your entire organization goes on a mission to eliminate many meetings and to improve the outcomes of meetings that you choose to conduct, you will make more money. You will […]
In this series on how to get real work done in meetings (and make more money!), the third principle is to clarify the purpose and desired outcomes of your meeting. Why are you meeting? What do you want to accomplish? Too often very little thought goes into calling a meeting. Is there something you want […]
Advice on how to structure business meetings with rules of engagement.
How many times do you sit around a conference room table with several other people to hold yet another boring, unproductive meeting? Conference tables were not designed to foster real work; they are only good for certain kinds of discussions. The fact of the table limits how people work when seated around it. You might […]
Introducing a series of ten blog posts about making meetings more productive to increase the time available for sales and service.