Successful Meetings: How to Plan, Prepare, and Execute Top-Notch Business Meetings
A study by MCI found that most professionals believe that over 50 percent of meeting time is wasted. More than 90 percent admit to daydreaming in meetings, 73 percent have brought other work, and 39 percent have fallen asleep. You might think that there would be fewer meetings. However, in the survey 46 percent said they attended more meetings than a year ago.
Meetings cost time and money. Many meetings end with no results or outcome. How can you be sure you are using your time and money effectively? The answer: with proper training. Even MBA graduates have never had a course in how to plan, organize, and present an effective meeting. That is the subject of this new book that will teach the proper skills and training to get great results — with every meeting, every time! You will learn the checklists for planning your meeting, setting the agenda, strategic planning, how the physical setting can be improved, how to properly open a meeting, handling difficult people, maintaining control, how to assess and evaluate your meetings, and the correct method to end a meeting. Good meetings do not just happen - they are planned and created.
Meetings have to rank as one of the most loathed activities in modern corporate life. While the idea of coming together as a group to collectively solve problems or brainstorm new ideas sounds good, poor planning and management too often leads to fuzzy, disorganized sessions in stuffy conference rooms. In surveys, 90% of respondents admit to daydreaming during meetings, almost 75% say they have sometimes brought other work, and 9% say they have fallen asleep.
Shri Henkel believes she knows how to change all that. Her book, Successful Meetings: How to Plan, Prepare and Execute Top-Notch Business Meetings, is a great step-by-step guide running meetings that produce results. Rather than begin from the premise that all meetings are necessary, Henkel starts out by suggesting that the reader ask themselves a very basic question: is this meeting really necessary? Could these issues be tackled in a different way? She even suggests costing the meeting out, so the reader can see how much money a meeting will consume in staff salary, equipment costs, and of course, snacks.
Once you’ve determined that a meeting is necessary, Henkel has a wide variety of ideas on how to set agendas and keep to it, how to encourage active participation among staff, how to capture ideas for later use, and how to receive feedback so the next meeting is even better. An entire chapter is devoted to feel-good “team building” exercises designed to open up communications and get the thoughts flowing. All in all, this would be a great book for any middle or upper-level manager looking to run their meetings more effectively.
Comment by Heather Michon — September 3, 2007 @ 6:12 pm
Planning a business meeting can be a daunting task. Whether you’ve put on numerous business meetings or this is your first, there are so many details to consider. Shri Henkel’s “Successful Meetings: How to Plan, Prepare and Execute Top-Notch Business Meetings” covers all the essentials to create a business meeting sure to please not only your clients, but your boss, as well.
To keep from missing any important details, Henkel outlines every aspect needed, including: signs of a good or bad meeting and ways to determine if a meeting is even necessary. The author tailors the book to teach individuals ways to plan the meeting as well as communication methods to expedite the planning process.
Not only are the basics of planning included, but Henkel covers the qualities of a good meeting as well. These include outlining the topic, taking the audience into consideration, overcoming power struggles and much more. This comprehensive book provides all the essentials to planning, creating and presenting a top-notch business meeting.
Score: 5
Comment by Jill Dutton — December 12, 2007 @ 4:11 pm
I’ll say right up front I HATE meetings more than Dilbert. But I have to organize lots of them for my job. Sometimes involving people in different offices or across the state. Some of this book is just common sense – I’ve already tried some of the strategies on my boss with suggesting teleconferences or just dealing with it by email. But sometimes it’s still not enough and he makes me go ahead with the meeting. And that’s where this book really came in handy – learning how to set the ground rules, learning how to end them to reach consensus – and how to evaluate the meeting. All of the small details that don’t really get thought about much.
Comment by Jody — January 21, 2008 @ 6:54 pm