Meetings

Okay, if you work in a large organization you have a lot of meetings right? Well, I do. This week I spent 9 hours in meetings. There were 7 meetings and only one started on time. One of them started almost 20 minutes late. And several people came in 30 minutes after the meeting was supposed to start. One the late people was holding a large fresh cup of coffee. I stress fresh because they were clearly running late and they had to stop and get a hot cup of Joe. If you are running late why not skip it. Your punishment is to get the coffee after the meeting. Why should we all wait on you?

From now on my meetings start on time. If you are late you will just miss the information and hopefully people will start to learn. The Signature Theatre starts ON TIME! I was late for one of there shows and I had to wait in to lobby for a seating break. I have (knock on wood) not been late again. I learned my lesson.

Some things to keep in mind about planning a meeting…

1) Make sure everyone knows what will be discussed and who will be attending. This will help everyone be more prepared and save time.
2) Make sure you need a meeting. If it can get settled without a meeting, skip it. We all have enough meetings.
3) Make sure a space is reserved. There is nothing worse than going to a meeting and not having a place to meet.
4) BE ON TIME. If you are leading a meeting and you are late it does not set a good precedent for future meetings and makes it look like you don’t take it seriously.