'Meeting'

Lets have a 'Meeting'

World over the word 'Meeting' is used. World over
meetings are done. Sometimes the whole day we do
nothing but meetings and meetings. We must ask
some questions to ourselves:

What is a meeting?
Do we understand the importance of meetings?
Why a meeting?

11 points in 'Meeting'
11 points of discussion regarding a 'Meeting'
What is a meeting
Importance of meeting.
Alternative to a meeting
Contents of a meeting
Minutes of Meeting
Why the minutes? What do they contain?
Forwarding minutes to concerned persons
Action taken on the minutes.
Monitoring of the actions taken.
Action taken on the monitoring of the minutes
7 Sins of Meeting

Meaning of Meeting
Meeting is a gathering of like people with a common
cause & a common agenda.
Meeting management helps to set skills often overlooked
by leaders & managers. Remember meetings are very
expensive activities considering the cost of labour. So
take meeting management very seriously.
Meetings are of many types i.g. Staff meetings, planing
meetings, problem solving meetings, etc. However there
are certain basics that are common to all meetings.

Importance of Meeting
Points are discussed for the common cause.
Points are discussed for the improvement of
performance & productivity.
To plug communication gap.
To remove the doubts.
To formulate a policy.
To fix targets.
To save time & efforts.
To ensure proper implementation of policies.

Alternatives to Meeting
There is no alternative to meeting because it is the
only precise way to remove ambiguity and wastage
of time. Yes, at times, time can be saved by having
meetings through telephones or video confrences.

Contents of the Meeting

Agenda
Agenda is the points to be discussed in the meeting. An
agenda should be precised & to the point. Think what overall
outcome is wanted from the meeting and what activities are
needed to reach them.
Contents
Contents of a meeting should be short & clear. Design the
agenda so that participants get involved by having something
for each participant to get involved early so they come on
time.
Discussions
Keep the ageda posted at all times.
Discussion on the agenda should be kept more or less to the
point

Minutes of the Meeting

Minutes of the meeting should be recorded in detail
& in toto, keeping in mind the aim of the meeting.

Why Minutes?

Minutes should be recorded in order to avoid

ambiguity in understanding the outcome of the
meeting.

Forawading Minutes to
Concerned Persons

The minutes of the meetings should be circulated to

all the responsible concerned persons for the
implementation of policies.

Action on minutes

Recepient of the minutes should take action as per

the directions in the meeting.

Monitoring of the action

There should be a monitoring of the action taken on

the minutes by the person calling the meeting.

Action on monitoring report

Action should be taken on the monitoring report. ie;

encouraging the person who does well & correct the
person who sleeps on it.

7 sins of Meeting
People dont take meetings seriously.
Meetings are too long. They should accomplish
twice in half time.
People wander off the topic.
People dont convert decisions into actions.
People dont tell the truth in conversation.
Critical decisions are always postponed.
Meetings never get better.

Conclusion