The Seven Sins of Deadly Meetings by ERIC MATSON Web Article Summary By Aaron Hauber Enlish 393 section 501

Why Are Meetings Important? Meetings are the most universal -- and universally despised -- part of business life. Bad meeting make bad companies An organization's culture is perpetuated from its meetings.

Jon Ryburg Recommends that companies double their meeting space if they have not done so in the past 20 years. Reason: “More and more companies are team-based companies, and in team-based companies most work gets done in meetings.”

Sin #1 “People don't take meetings seriously. They arrive late, leave early, and spend most of their time doodling.” Solution: Make employees believe that meetings are real work. – Make meetings uptime rather then downtime – Have structured agendas, clear goals, paths that you're going to follow.

Sin #2: “Meetings are too long. They should accomplish twice as much in half the time.” Solution: Realize how much long meetings cost – Meetings should be no longer then 90 minutes – Use technology to get more ideas out faster. Groupware allows more than one person to talk at a time.

Sin #3 ”People wander off the topic. Participants spend more time digressing than discussing.” Solution: Follow agendas. – Leave distractions in the “parking lot” – Allow agendas to circulate around the office before meetings to permit modifications where needed. – Establish voting methods

Sin #4 “Nothing happens once the meeting ends. People don't convert decisions into action.” Solution: have someone take minutes – Easy to distribute – Outlines what was talked about at the meeting so that people can see what they are responsible for.

Sin #5 “People don't tell the truth. There's plenty of conversation, but not much candor.” Solution: Anonymity – Use groupware to allow ideas to be submitted anonymously. – Allows passive employees to give ideas without being over powered by others.

Sin #6 “Meetings are always missing important information, so they postpone critical decisions.” Solution: Turn meeting rooms into computer labs – Allows employees to show and see real data

Sin #7 “Meetings never get better. People make the same mistakes.” Solution: Practice makes perfect. – Observe what works and what doesn't and hold people accountable for change.

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Reference Matson, Eric. "The Seven Sins of Deadly Meetings." Fast Company 1996: n. pag. Web. 31 Oct