No More Useless Meetings

 
 
 

Meetings are a drag, and worse, they are often a waste of time. But Jean Van Rensselar of Chicago-based Smart PR Communications says productive, half-hour meetings are doable. "Lack of planning and unproductive discussion will turn what should be a 30-minute meeting into a 90-minute meeting. As the facilitator, the 60-minute difference is you."

These rules apply to physical gatherings of 10 people or less, and many of them work for teleconferences as well.Extraordinary meetings called for extraordinary purposes will have their own dynamics.

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No More Useless Meetings

1. Meet for a Reason Call meetings when an issue or project demands rapid, round-table input, or you want to see how people react.

No More Useless Meetings
 
 
Senior Writer and author of the Know It All blog

Ed Cone has worked as a contributing editor at Wired, a staff writer at Forbes, a senior writer for Ziff Davis with Baseline and Interactive Week, and as a freelancer based in Paris and then North Carolina for a wide variety of magazines and papers including the International Herald Tribune, Texas Monthly, and Playboy. He writes an opinion column in his hometown paper, the Greensboro News & Record, and publishes the semi-popular EdCone.com weblog. He lives in North Carolina with his wife, Lisa, two kids, and a dog.
 
 
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