Meetings seem to have been a hot topic of conversation on the web this week with quite a few comments on Twitter and then on Training Zone http://bit.ly/bjqsqk. All this chatter got me thinking about some of the meetings that I had been in that had been well run and then some of the meetings that had ‘lost there way’ and not been very successful at all.

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In my experience meetings can go wrong in several ways. Think about the last meeting you attended. Consider which of the following criticisms might apply:

• The purpose of the meeting was unclear 
• A meeting was unnecessary to achieve the purpose
• Some of the members had no reason to be there 
• Not all members knew who all the other members were 
• Some people who should have been there were not 
• The meeting suffered from a lack of leadership 
• No-one was taking adequate notes or minutes 
• The meeting was disrupted 
• People with important things to say were not given a proper hearing 
• The person in the chair talked too much 
• The meeting ran out of time 
• The meeting was allowed to go on long beyond the agreed finishing time 
• Several topics failed to result in decisions 
• Members felt their time was wasted 
• The costs (salaries, expenses, etc.,) involved in having the meeting were not justified by the results.

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What nightmares would you add to this list?

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Martin Smith is a highly regarded Freelance Learning and Development Consultant with many years experience of helping organisations, teams and individuals, to get the best from their people. His experience spans three diverse industries and encompasses sectors such as engineering, design, customer service, finance, supply chain and procurement.

Martin specialises in working with leaders at all levels to help them improve their communication skills and get the best from their relationships with people. Martin also provides Leadership Development, Executive Coaching, Team Development, Change Management and Managing People and Performance training. Please feel free to contact me if you feel that I could be of help to you.

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