Category Archives: Meeting perceptions

Is the venue crucial to the quality of the outcome? – by Howard Popeck

The quality of outcome of the meeting is not overly influenced by where that meeting is held. Some might disagree. Consider this though; important decisions have been made in corridors, car parks and cars. These meetings might seem casual - but you’d be mistaken. Look beyond the superficial.

A chance verbal encounter in the corridor between colleagues could be legitimately described as a business meeting - if in so doing it furthers progress towards the purpose of resolving problems or making decisions. If it doesn’t meet that criterion then in this context it’s merely a meeting by chance.

Traditionally, most business meetings at work are more formal, with a prearranged time and venue. Because it’s always been like that doesn’t mean it has to stay like that! It depends on the circumstances. If a formal meeting is required, then the venue should be appropriate.

However at one of the major IT companies I was a consultant too, the departmental heads of the creative and innovation teams put all the coffee machines, drinks dispensers and related tools in the middle of each floor’s work space and surrounded these with the most comfortable chairs and sofas they could afford. They positively encouraged team members to congregate there as often and for as long as they chose.

The quality of the innovations that resulted from the less formal structures were significantly higher than when brainstorming sessions took place in a more formal setting. On the back of that radical approach to meetings, albeit the niche ones of brainstorming, that initially small company floated on the UK stock market and the shareholders lived happily ever after.

Do you really need another meeting? By Howard Popeck

If yes, how can you be so sure? Too many managers feel pressurised by the apparent need for meetings. Pressurised from outside, and through self-inflicted internal pressure. Here are the five questions you need to answer internally and truthfully to find out.

Q1:  How much time are you really expected to spend in meetings?

Q2:  How has that figure been arrived at, where’s the supporting evidence and what are the core assumptions underpinning them?

Q3:  Looking back, how many meetings you called really served a useful purpose?

Q4: Are you guilty of using meetings as a substitute for real work?

Q5: Are you guilty of using meetings as camouflage to mask the fact that currently you are merely treading water re your job obligations?

The moral is this: If you were to consider the true value of a meeting (and this presupposes you can calculate the direct and indirect costs of that meeting) then you might arrange Ð and attend fewer of them!

Plan your meetings based on real costs

Extract . . .  

2MuchTalk software enables you, for the first time, to plan the true cost of meetings. It covers the length of meetings, venues, audiovisuals, food, travel, accommodation, salaries, the whole shebang. The true figures will probably appal you!.

Read more here:

http://www.2muchtalk.com/

The refreshments. Will that be coffee or water?

Extract . . .   

Eli Mina, M.Sc writes as follows:

A citizen watching a public meeting of a municipal council complained that the mayor and the councilors were using coffee mugs. When contacted to explain what he thought was wrong with this, the individual could not explain, except that it didn’t look right. They say that in politics appearance is everything and perceptions can become reality.

So what might be the problem? Drinking coffee is associated with a casual social gathering. You think about a coffee break as being the time to relax and refresh yourself. If the Mayor and Council are seated in front of the public and conduct the business of the municipality, it is not a social gathering. It is serious business, and it should have the appearance of it.

Read more here:
http://www.elimina.com/insights/coffee-water.htm