Three kinds of meetings … March 4, 2009
… and one of them is a waste of time, effort, attention and money. The other two are the same thing.
As Seth describes, there are 3 types of meetings. From his post:
- Information. This is a meeting where attendees are informed about what is happening (with or without their blessing). While there may be a facade of conversation, it’s primarily designed to inform.
- Discussion. This is a meeting where the leader actually wants feedback or direction or connections. You can use this meeting to come up with an action plan, or develop a new idea, for example.
- Permission. This is a meeting where the other side is supposed to say yes but has the power to say no.
If you call a meeting simply to inform, there are much better (read more effective) methods to use. Things like: memos, email, word of mouth (the old rumor mill), phone calls, delegation, chain of command, newsletters and much more. Information based meetings are what give meetings a bad name.
The other two, discussion and permission meetings can be boiled down to one thing; decision making. If you pull a bunch of employees together to discuss something, make sure a decision is made at the end of the meeting. Even if that is just to collect more information to enable better informed decisions in the next meeting. A permission meeting is having the other side to decide one way or another.
Meetings are to make decisions. If a decision isn’t made, it’s a waste of everyone’s time, effort, attention and money.
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