Introduction

James Houghton, then the CEO of Cornering made a rule that anyone who believed that he or she added no value in a particular meeting of regular frequency, nor obtained any value, could take his or her name off the list of participants for that meeting. A very large number of ritualized meetings died very quickly.

Gratton and Ghoshal ^[1]

In many organizations meetings are seen as huge time wasters and an excuse for procrastination and indecisiveness. As illustrated by the quote above, many people attend meetings who simply have no need to be there. The action of calling a meeting can give a feel-good factor; something has happened and any related work or decisions can justifiably be postponed until the meeting. Sometimes an if in doubt, call a meeting syndrome pervades an organization as long as progress is seen to be being made it doesn't matter how slow and tortuous that progress might be.

As a manager you are likely to call and chair team meetings as well as attend a variety of different types of meetings across your organization. In this section of the workbook we explore the skills and considerations for both chairing and contributing to meetings.

Types of Meetings

The term meeting is a catch-all term to describe anything from a brief exchange of ideas or information in a corridor to a very formal, regulated meeting of,...