Making Meetings Less Awful

See also Stupid Meeting Tricks Meetings can be torture. The average worker spends 5.6 hours every week in meetings, yet 71% of participants say it’s pretty much a waste of time, according to a Microsoft survey. Meetings themselves are not the problem, however; it’s the folks running the meetings. That’s the theme of "Boring Meetings Suck: Get More Out of Your Meetings, or Get Out of More Meetings" (Wiley/available now), a book by Jon Petz. This breezy examination of the root causes of truly awful meetings offers easy-to-follow best practices for running get-togethers in which things actually get accomplished – and that don’t drag on forever. Too many poorly planned meetings “suck the life out of business, government and non-profit organizations,” Petz writers. “A great meeting can provide great value, especially when great value has been designed into it.” Petz is something of a meeting professional – he’s made presentations on the topic for clients including Accenture, AT&T, the U.S. Air Force, and Nationwide. For more about the book, click here.