The document discusses characteristics of effective and ineffective meetings based on surveys. It provides tips for preparing for, conducting, and following up on meetings. Some key points are: most meetings lack proper preparation and drift off topic; effective meetings allow participation, have clear purposes and agendas, and assign action items; preparation involves setting objectives, inviting essential participants, and creating an agenda; conducting meetings requires starting and ending on time, reviewing the agenda, and summarizing; follow-up consists of outlining tasks and sending meeting minutes. The document also addresses dealing with difficult meeting participants.

1. Every day
83 million
people attend
11.5 million
meetings

3. OBJECTIVE
• Share effective actions to keep meetings on
track
Flow
1. Preparing
2. Conducting
3. Folow-up
4. Difficult participants

4. CHARACTERISTICS OF
NEGATIVE MEETINGS
• 83% -- Drifting off the subject
• 77% -- Poor preparation
• 74% -- Questionable effectiveness
• 68% -- Lack of listening
• 62% -- Verbosity of participants
• 60% -- Length
• 51% -- Lack of participation
From “Achieving Effective Meetings – Not Easy But Possible”
by Bradford D. Smart in a survey of 635 executives.

6. CHARACTERISTICS OF EFFECTIVE
MEETINGS
• 88% -- allow all attendees to participate
• 66% -- define a meeting’s purpose
• 62% -- address each item on the agenda
• 59% -- assign follow up action
• 47% -- record discussion
• 46% -- invite only essential personnel
• 36% -- write an agenda /time frames
Source: GM Consultants, Pittsburgh, 2005

7. 1. PREPARATION FOR A
MEETING
• Purpose and outcomes
• Participants
• Logistics
• Agenda
• Needed information

8. 2. CONDUCTING MEETINGS
• Start on time
• Review agenda
• Minutes taker
• Assign and agree on responsibilities and establish
target dates for completion
• Summarize
• End on time
• Send out minutes
• HAVE SOME FUN!!

9. 3. FOLLOW-UP
• Outline tasks and assign deadline
• Send out minutes to team immediately
• Keep good track of decisions and promises

10. • Take 5 minutes to think of difficult types of
participants

11. DEALING WITH DIFFICULT
MEMBERS
• Listen, but do not debate
• Talk privately with members who continually
exhibit disruptive behaviors
• Turn negative behaviors into
positive contributions
• Encourage the group to share the responsibility for
handling difficult members
• Try different strategies

12. THANK YOU