Team meetings have a pretty bad reputation. Most people either shiver or yawn only when hearing the word. The main reason is that uninspired leaders hold people hostage for hours, while delivering dull speeches or presentations that no one actually is interested to hear. But you can do better!
Having contacts is very useful for any professional. Knowing the right people can help you develop your business and offer new opportunities. For that reason, networking should be on the social agenda of any leader and entrepreneur as a must do. Attending events, such as summits, conferences, and industry fairs, is the perfect opportunity for networking and getting quality contacts.
Meetings are about to die. Particularly since collaborative work has become the staple of modern office life, they are about to die. And after they die, they will move somewhere better, virtual. Somewhere in the cloud, or in a special bundle of apps. But don’t get your hopes up high yet.
After all, there have been attempts to put new life into meetings. Some preach against inherent inefficacies. “Make meetings purposeful”, they say. Others are deluding themselves that theater methods will do. So “treat your meetings like an improv session”, they say. Seems like everyone thinks that “The Office” is a documentary. That we should all turn Michael Scott and do some improv.
Goals, productivity, and teams. What could be the secret ingredient that binds these three? We admire those that inspire. And nothing inspires us more than the pursuit of greatness. Tenacity. Resilience. The ability to keep going, no matter what. And it is people like these that we want to lead us. It’s no surprise that we tend to follow those who persevere.
Statistically, 9 out of 10 people prefer to interact at work in any other way than meetings. It’s a long-known culprit in corporate but also in SMB environments that apply standard operational formulas. Alternatives are hard to come by. You need to buy video conferencing tech, you need to triple-check that attendants are at their desk, that their computer supports the platform etc. Actually, we should have used past tense here as alternatives are no longer hard to come by.
Photo by Dylan Gillis on Unsplash
You won’t believe how many types of meetings exist. You have staff meetings, ad-hoc meetings, board meetings, manager meetings, one-on-one meetings, team-meetings, standing meetings, and the list goes on. Worst of all, meetings are generally perceived as time-wasting. According to business coach Dale Dauten, companies worldwide cumulatively spend a mind-boggling 300K hours per year, purely on congregations.
Most businesses today still use traditional meetings to convene on how to sell a product, proceed with a given project, or adjust their operations. Asking people to step away from their desk to gather in a conference room may have been a sound idea ten years ago, but today this is no longer the case. If there’s two things that never miss from a meeting, it’s communication and data. You can have both in your browser, thanks to Hubgets.
Now that we know what not to do in meetings, let’s have a look at some of the Do’s. Specifically, what you need to arm yourself with before going into the meeting room.
So what are the top five things you should always be prepared for when attending an office conclave?
The web is chock full of advice regarding meetings and how to tackle them. Do this, don’t do that, here’s what to say to appear smart, and the list could go on. Personally, I think it all boils down to five Don’ts and just as many Do’s. I’ll save the positive ones for a later post. Right now, let’s look at what you shouldn’t do in a meeting. No ifs or buts.