Think of the last time someone you know was upset because there was one less meeting on his or her business calendar. Or, for that matter, when was the last time you were upset because a meeting you did not want to attend was cancelled?

Conversely, think of the number of times we are called to a meeting and the associated feelings with that meeting, once we realize that the meeting was a waste of time.

The Wharton School of Business recently released a study, indicating that by the time one retires from business, if a title, such as manager, leader, supervisor, entrepreneur, etc., is associated to his or her name, they will have spent about 34 percent of their career in a meeting!

Here Are Ten Tactical Management Tools For Meeting Effectiveness:

1. Alternative – Before considering calling for a meeting or attending a meeting, always ask yourself if there is a better alternative for accomplishing that meeting’s agenda, such as a conference call, e-mail, memo or one-on-one intervention. If the agenda does not directly impact others, cancel the meeting, since it was about to be called to order out of simple meeting habit…

2. Hold A Huddle – A downside to actual meetings is that they convey sitting. This means people bring drink and food, and it can easily digress into a social setting on someone else’s budget. A huddle is a great means to gather key players for a quick duration and do so in a standing environment (hallway). Thus it becomes difficult for the drinks, snacks and socializing to occur when everyone is focused upon content, note taking, action solution development and execution.

3. Agenda – Any meeting without the use of a written agenda is an opportunity for people to come together and wonder aimlessly in dialogue for hours. Remember the last meeting you attended, where the subject matter (code for agenda) could have been addressed in a few minutes, yet 30-minutes later you were still sitting there? With the development of a simple agenda (it can even be scribbled out on a sheet of paper to be placed on a table between participants!), you can ensure that you have your notes, documentation and advocates in order before you implement the meeting and begin to work from the strategically developed agenda.

4. ID The Meeting Type – To greatly increase productivity, recognize, from the outset, what type of meeting this really is. There are only three basic types of meetings, each with its own associated management style for maximum productivity. ONE, “Information-Sharing,” is when attendees are brought together and given information. The management style here is very “Autocratic.” Any Q&A associated with that agenda is fair game; everything else is off limits. Therefore, if there is no Q&A, the meeting is over. TWO, “Information-Gathering,” is when attendees are brought together and information is developed and dialogued. Q&A occurs, and as long as attendees are within the perimeters of the agenda, anything goes. Thus a more “Democratic” management style is executed here. THREE, the “Information-Creation,” is otherwise known as a brain storming session. Here, the style has a more “Laissez-faire” approach, and anything goes.

5. Location – Always hold a meeting in the location most conducive for the agenda. “What resources do we need to execute the agenda? What distractions do I want to eliminate?” These are great questions to take into consideration when selecting a location – it may mean changing the complete geography of a meeting and moving it from where it would traditionally be held!

6. Time – It is critical to the success of any meeting to reflect upon the agenda and determine three time-sensitive factors: ONE, When would be a bad time for this meeting? Typically, holding a meeting at the beginning of the day or directly after lunch can be low a productivity time windows for the day; TWO, When would be a good time for this meeting? Holding your meeting directly on the front side of an even more pressing meeting may ensure greater attendance and attention; THREE, How much time does this agenda require?

7. Role Assignment – Spread the burden of meeting management among the participants in order to gain greater professionalism and participation. There are three critical roles to facilitating an effective meeting, and you should not have to do everything. So have them assigned, and rotate the roles with each meeting. Consider: ONE, Have a “Secretary” take notes, so there is a history of the discussion, which serves as a reference for both you and those who did not attend the meeting; TWO, Have someone serve as the “Time Keeper,” ensuring that everyone gets an opportunity to talk and the meeting remains on track and finishes in a timely manner; THREE, Have a “Hall Crier,” who assists in getting everyone to the meeting location on time. This starts the meeting on a positive note.

8. Cost – What a meeting costs, in both hard time and real financials, can be staggering if one actually computes the meeting. Consider some of these financials: ONE, Determine the per-minute salary of every attendee andwho you can afford to attend the meeting. You may want to design the agenda to excuse certain players, so as to not waste their time and your money; TWO, Cross reference the amount of time a meeting will last with the lost productivity of each meeting attendee and the add-on lost productivity associated with people not doing their work because they can’t reach someone in your meeting; THREE, There are all of the environmental costs like room, lighting, snacks, equipment, etc.; FOUR, Any outside personalities involved and all of their related expenses. The financial costs associated with a meeting alone may be enough to cause some meetings to be cancelled!

9. Have Advocates – Consider your agenda and who among the attendees has the most to gain from any specific item. Then consider ways to approach them before then meeting, so when you raise specific items on the agenda, you increase their reception by others because of the buy-in from some at the outset. This may mean you will have to be willing to negotiate items in their scope or execution as you pre-dialogue with perspective advocates!

10. End With Action Review – Always end a meeting (whether the meeting is telephonic, web cast or face-to-face) with a review of what items were resolved, what items are to be acted upon, what the specific next steps are (whether it be a deadline, follow-up meeting or huddle) and who owns each.

So the next time you attend a meeting, recognize what measures can be tactically administered to increase the overall effectiveness of all participants for maximum productivity!

-Dr Jeff Magee
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When the dust settles and the calm returns, the degree of quality productivity versus sheer activity will mean the difference between profitability and mere sustainability in today’s business place. To attain this, one must be able to facilitate basic decision-making in relation to what one focuses energy on and what should be set aside or ignored entirely.

In today’s business place, whether a professional uses an electronic self-management device (PDA) or a more traditional day planner, it is critical that the use of a tactical system be adopted and used diligently for true productivity.

An incredibly simple, yet explosive, tactical productivity decision-making instrument that can be adopted into any system is the “Quadrant Manager System© (QM)!”

To ensure maximum productivity, use the following instrument daily. It can be added to any existing system to ensure the totality of listed action items needing daily attention get the appropriate level of attention. The instrument also serves as an efficient daily monitoring instrument at mid-day by evaluating what items in one’s business have been addressed by mid-day and thus where energies should be focused for the remainder of the day.

Always remember, there is a difference between being active and being productive!

To use the QM System© there are three distinct tactical steps. Both psychology and profitability are incorporated into the implementation of the QM System©. If you shortcut any step, you will find that you will lapse into an ACTIVITY zone and not a PRODUCTIVITY zone!

1. STEP ONE, CREATE IT – Anywhere on your existing physical day planning device or on any blank sheet of paper, merely draw a large plus sign. Make the sign large enough to make small notes within the four quadrants imposed by the intersecting lines, yet small enough to not take up much physical space.
   The plus sign created by the intersecting lines creates four distinct quadrants (hence the QM System©), each representing a productivity zone. In any order, it does not matter, label the four quadrants: TO DO, TO SEE, TO CALL, TO WRITE.
   These represent the only workable action items one faces in business. All tasks, assignments, and activities can be attributed to any one of these four quadrants!
   
2. STEP TWO, BUILD IT – Regardless of the totality of items you may have assigned to a pre-existing action/to do list, to increase productivity greatly, you must evaluate each category within the QM System©.  Only write up to, and never more than, THREE ENTRIES in each quadrant. If there are not three items needing attention for a given day in a given quadrant, don’t make up extra work for yourself.  If there are more than three, the rule of thumb is, “If I could only work on up to, and no more than, three items per quadrant, which three would be most important?”
   Now you have identified the three most important action items for productivity for a given day.  If accomplished, you will have completed the top 12 most productive items needing your attention, as opposed to countless items that, while they may have needed attention, were not critical and, thus, not important.  When the dust settled they were probably more along the lines of items that occupied a lot of activity and not productivity!
   
3. STEP THREE, PRIORITIZE IT – Now evaluate each quadrant independently. Using the same methodology used for placing the initial entries into the quadrants, evaluate and prioritize each quadrant’s action items by asking, “If I could only work on one item in this quadrant, which one would be most important?”

Continue that evaluation for all entries in each quadrant and for all four quadrants.

When you are done, you will have a maximum of three items per quadrant, and each will have a descending numerical value associated with it. Notice that you may have items in a quadrant that, while you wrote them down as the first entry in that quadrant, have a value of two or three associated with them.  This indicates that they get your attention only after the “one’s” have been completed or pushed forward as far as they can for legitimate reasons.

To ensure maximum productivity, always work tactically on those items that are genuinely most important. You can take the QM System© and occasionally modify your attention by drawing a circle in the middle of the instrument. Then prioritize the quadrants, one more important than the other, as well as the items within each quadrant.

Additional lessons learned from the implementation of the system are: All items that fall at level three or below are those that should either be delegated away to others or should never have been allowed onto your figurative desk; you can use the instrument as a conversation reference with those that over-task you by engaging in cooperatively deciding which items need your true attention and which items can be better tasked away to others; you can modify the system and have tactical variations for just marketing, selling, research-development, business projects, and so on.

Success in the new economy is dependent upon every player at every level setting aside those items that may be fun but are not productivity items for one’s bottom line purpose!

-Dr Jeff Magee
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