We have a love-hate relationship with meetings. Most of us want to get rid of them — they drive frustration and waste our time. However, when we don’t invite someone to a meeting, that person feels left out. Sounds familiar?…
Meetings
5 Steps to Improving Engagement in Meetings
The interview for that new job you’re hoping to get. The coffee date with your personal hero, and hopefully, future mentor. The make-or-break sales demo with that perfect-fit client. The last-ditch attempt to mend a broken partnership. When you are…
Here’s How to Conquer the Hard Conversations You’d Rather Avoid
Hard conversations may be a fact of business life but that doesn’t mean we look forward to them. Just the opposite. We avoid them to avoid causing even more problems, to avoid hurt feelings, and mostly, as Nick Doctor says,…
For More Productive Meetings, Do a Mindset Check-In First
“Bring the mind into sharp focus and make it alert so that it can immediately intuit truth, which is everywhere. “ — Bruce Lee We live in a distracted society. Having focus is a scarce currency. No surprise distractions are taking a toll…
How to Improve the ROI of Your Staff Meetings
Ray, our COO many years ago, used to start meetings with 10-15 minutes of chit-chat. While his intention was to promote socializing, the effect was late-arrivers, difficulty in focusing at the start of serious discussion, and low energy throughout the…
Host a Culture Workshop and Discover How to Build a Stronger Company
We all aspire to work for a company that values our work and treats us like grown-ups. But what else do you want from the place where you spend the majority of your waking life? Company culture is best defined…
5 Secrets of Successful One-On-One Meetings
One clear distinction between engaged and disengaged organizations is the fact that they are more likely to hold regular one-on-one meetings. Quantum Workplace reviewed 300 employer survey responses and found 85.7% of highly engaged companies hold one-on-one meetings compared to just…
10 Steps to Getting Things At Work “Unstuck”
Ever notice how progress in the workplace sometimes moves at a glacial speed or seems totally stuck? If yours is like most workplaces in the world, you have not only noticed this, but found it frustrating. This post promises to…
A Manager’s Essential Guide to Holding 1-on-1 Check-Ins
For most employees, their days are riddled with meetings. All-hands meetings, departmental meetings, quarterly kick-off meetings, annual review meetings — the list goes on. Some meetings are critical to productivity, others, not so much. You need to know when to hold…
7 Clues That Prove You Have No Business Running a Meeting
Meetings and conference calls suck up our time. If your meetings are unruly and unproductive, you’re wasting people’s time. It doesn’t reflect well on you. Save your reputation. A few minutes of meeting preparation and planning on the front end…
Don Rumsfeld’s 8 Rules For Successful Meetings
Editor’s Note: As I wind down my time as Editor of TLNT — I’m leaving in April — I wanted to share a few of my favorite TLNT posts. Here’s one from May 2013. Here’s a question I have heard repeated for years —…
11 Things Leaders Need to Talk About When They Meet With Their Staff
A few years back I wrote an article called Stop Having Status Meetings! 5 Better Things to do Instead. Status updates squander time that could be spent using your team as a team. At the bottom of that article I mentioned…
In Praise of Stand-Up Meetings
“One of my favorite tricks is to conduct most of my meetings standing up. I find it to be a much quicker way of getting down to business, making a decision and sealing the deal.” ― Sir Richard Branson, British…
How Do You Handle a Person Who Tries to Dominate a Workplace Meeting?
In an ideal world, everybody would play nice. All meeting attendees would arrive on time, put away their devices, tune in to the discussion, contribute passionately, listen to their colleagues’ opinions, understand the logical flow of the meeting process, resolve…
The 3 Ways That Co-Workers Waste Everyone Else’s Time
“Much talking is the cause of danger. Silence is the means of avoiding misfortune. The talkative parrot is shut up in a cage. Other birds, without speech, fly freely about.“ — Sakya Pandita, 13th century Tibetan spiritual leader The gift…
The Terribly High Cost of Having a Meeting Culture
Consider your average white-collar professional making $45,000/year, not including benefits. At that rate, it would cost an organization about $25 for this person to sit in an hour-long meeting. That’s not too bad. But now consider that the average American…
Weekly Wrap: The 15 Scariest Issues Employers Are Facing This Year
Who can possibly resist something that touts the Scariest Employment Challenges of 2015: 15 Issues Employers Cannot Afford to Ignore? Not me. This is something I can really dig my teeth into, and it is an annual survey report put…
6 Leadership Practices That Every Leader Should Follow
Leaders think strategically, understand the critical link between focus and clarity, and appreciate the value of time. So, fewer and fewer are inclined to let others waste their time. Brevity has become a basic communication skill for professionals.
The Problem With Meetings? They Cost More Than They’re Really Worth
Editor’s Note: Readers frequently ask about past TLNT articles. That’s why we republish a Classic TLNT post every Friday. How much is it costing? “We just spent over $5,000 for a half-hour meeting,” one of the senior executives said. The meeting was…
8 Ways to Help Make Your Office Meetings More Tolerable
Editor’s Note: Readers frequently ask about past TLNT articles. That’s why we republish a Classic TLNT post every Friday. Meetings are indispensable when you don’t want to do anything.” — John Kenneth Galbraith, economist. As we can all attest, business meetings often…