North Coast Connections

TO CONVENE OR NOT TO CONVENE
Think seriously whether a face to face meeting is needed. Can this be resolved by an email? How about a telephone call? Too many people? How about a teleconference call? Here is my rule every time I attend a meeting ... I mentally calculate the billable rate of those in attendance and add up an imaginary bill at the end. Want to guess how many times the result justifies the expense? Not many, in my view.

CONFERENCE CALLS
I like to use Teleconference.com, which has exceptionally low rates for dial-in conference calls but there are tons of other providers you can find by conducting a Google search. This is especially useful when participants are required to travel for an in-person meeting.

WEB MEETINGS
So you say there is too much detail to resolve in a phonecall or email? How about a web meeting? A Google search shows several providers including Webex.com, GoToMeeting.com, MeetMeNow.com and WebConference.com. Personally, I've used Webex with significant success. You can run a Powerpoint presentation, get interactive responses from participants and cover a lot of detailed information in a relatively short period of time.

PREPARATION
Ask yourself the purpose of the meeting and put together a well constructed agenda with clear delineations as to what is informational and what are action items. If there are mostly or all information items, consider sending this material to the group instead of calling a meeting.

RUN THE MEETING EFFECTIVELY
Begin and end the meeting on time, and preferably end it early. Keep order, don't let the extroverts dominate, make sure that everyone has a chance to participate and move things along. By turning chaos into order, most will appreciate your taking charge.

SET THINGS ASIDE
If you run against a roadblock, set it aside and move on. You'll find that most roadblocks occur with new items that are not the original purpose of the meeting. If you prepared a good agenda to begin with, the roadblock would probably not occur.

MINUTES
For gosh sakes record the meeting results in minutes. Try to keep them at or under one page, and concentrate on action items. List who is supposed to do what, why and within what timeframe. Verify agreements made at the meeting.

My father was an ophthalmologist who claimed to have taken more glasses off of kids than he put on them because he believed that most would grow out of their astigmatism. Similarly, I tend to cancel more meetings than I schedule. My least favorite are "standing" meetings that are supposed to occur within a set schedule (weekly or monthly) regardless of whether there is anything meaningful to be accomplished.

So please send me an email if you need to communicate with me. Call if you have to, though this should be used judiciously as well. If you call a meeting, it had better be for a compelling reason and you better convince me that you have prepared and will run the meeting efficiently.

Most people are willing to help and do the right thing, but most people also resent wasting their time.

Stepping off of soapbox ...

Chris Crawford
www.justiceserved.com