Making meetings more expensive
...might actually make them cost less.
What would happen if your organization hired a meeting fairy?
The fairies' job would be to ensure that meetings were short, efficient and effective. He would focus on:
• Getting precisely the right people invited, but no others.
• Making the meeting start right on time.
• Scheduling meetings so that they don't end when Outlook says they should, but so that they end when they need to.
• Ensuring that every meeting has a clearly defined purpose, and accomplishes that purpose, then ends.
• Welcoming guests appropriately. If you are hosting someone, the fairy makes sure the guest has adequate directions, a place to productively wait before the meeting starts, access to the internet, something to drink, biographies of who else will be in the room and a clear understanding of the goals of the meeting.
• Managing the flow of information, including agendas and Powerpoints. This includes eliminating the last minute running around looking for a VGA cable or a monitor that works. The fairy would make sure that everyone left with a copy of whatever they needed.
• Issuing a follow up memo to everyone who attended the meeting, clearly delineating who came and what was decided.
If you do all this, every time you call a meeting it's going to cost more to organize. Which means you'll call fewer meetings, those meetings will be shorter and more efficient. And in the long run, you'll waste less time and get more done.