Making Your Meetings Magic











We all spend too many hours in meetings.
The average UK employee spends over 14 hours a week in meetings, and half of these state that their time would have been spent more effectively on other areas of work.

Sadly we don’t always get the return we expect.
In a 2007 study by Bert van der Zwan (of internet company WebEx) 28% of middle managers said that reducing their number of face-to-face meetings would improve overall productivity at work, with a further 21% saying they would feel less stressed and 18% felt they would have a better work-life balance.

Now think how magnificent it would be if every single one of our meetings was powerful, purposeful and helped you make decisions which worked for you and for the common good.
Yes, every meeting is a priceless opportunity to surprise ourselves with just how much we can achieve together.

For Think Productive tips to help you on your way click Here for a PDF of our recent article in Just4SBMs magazine.

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If you’re looking for GTD training, our ‘How to Get Things Done’ workshops offer the basics on how to implement the ideas from David Allen’s GTD book, along with the best theory, tips and tricks from the likes of Peter Drucker, Tim Ferriss and many more! It’s available in-house to your company or also through our public workshops across the UK.

Time Management Training has changed! Click here to find out about our productivity-focussed Time management workshops, email training and facilitation training.

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Making effective and productive meetings

Think of how many hours we all spend in meetings. Then think how magnificent it would be if every single one was powerful, purposeful and helped you make decisions which worked for you and for the common good. Yes, every meeting is a priceless opportunity to surprise ourselves with just how much we can achieve together. Below are a few tips to help you on your way, for a more indepth look at making meetings magic visit our meetings workshop page.

Go on – don’t
How many times have you been bored by someone who spoke too long? How many times have you been surprised that someone on a platform spoke too little? Probably lots of the former and not much of the latter. So say what you have to say, and sit down. (It’s like drilling – strike oil and then stop boring.)

Don’t go to meetings – and we’ll all go home early
Fixing a meeting often seems like a good idea at the time. But it can also be a way of putting off actually doing anything. Its tempting – travelling to meetings when we don’t need to. Feels like we’re doing something when we’re not being proeductive. So do it a different way. First choice is meeting on the phone. Fix a time and stick to it. Save yourself the trip

Fix a time and stick to it (10.30 means … 10.30)
We all lose lots of time calling people who’re not there or who in a good frame of mind to talk to us. So fix a precise time to speak – and say you’ll call them rather than have them call you. Call them at precisely that time. Not before or after and earn yourself a reputation for being on the button. As well as increasing the chances of you both being ready to talk, it also tells them that you want to do business and get on with things

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Feedback that is going to make a difference

Feedback that is going to make a difference has the following ingredients:

what you say is true, (it’s a fact, not your opinion i.e. it’s first hand experience not something you heard from someone else);

it is succinct (if you’re not clear enough to be succinct, find someone to talk to and get things clear in your mind first);

it’s about someone’s observable behavior and is something which they could change i.e. it’s not something about them personally that they can’t change;

you give a recent example of what you’re talking about;

you deliver it direct to the person or people whom it concerns, not to third parties;

you give your feedback at a suitable time and place (e.g. when you’ve got time to follow up if you need to. Positive feedback can be given when other people might be able to hear. ‘Could do better’ kind of feedback should be done one to one.)

If you implement these simple guidelines the next time you are giving feedback you will find your input is a lot more to the point and valuable.

Think Productive also offer a workshop in Making Meetings Magic.

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Meetings – use the 40-20-40 model

How many times a week do you get home from work and say to yourself, “wow, what a great meeting we just had?!”. Here at Think Productive we are on a mission! Meetings are all too often the part of our workday that we feel is wasted, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Our Making Meetings Magic workshop teaches the 40-20-40 model from the book ‘Meeting Together’. This can be a really helpful way to think about the time management aspect of meetings, rather than simply the ‘20% in the middle’: the meeting itself.

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