Why Bother?

from Able Leader, May 2006

by Steve Kaye

Here are 5 benefits of effective meetings

1) Effective meetings make money

Effective meetings make a business smart by producing creative strategies, solid plans, and workable solutions.

And smart businesses always outperform others. Bad meetings, however, produce nothing, except maybe a decision to call another meeting.

A smart business attracts customers because they know that smart companies provide reliable products and services. Thus, your proposal meetings, sales presentations, and operational effectiveness tell customers what to expect.

For example, consider the opposite: what would a poorly run meeting tell you about product delivery?

A profit-driven business must obtain a positive return on every activity that it undertakes. And that includes meetings. Wise leaders design their meetings so that they earn money for the business.

2) Effective meetings save money

Good meetings produce results that people support.

And that represents a major operational efficiency because such results cost less to implement.

Results (if any) from a bad meeting seldom have everyone's support. Implementation is then hindered by broken commitments, competing activities, and sabotage. In turn, the business wastes huge amounts of money on duplicate efforts and dead-end projects.

Smart companies get full value for money spent. And that includes salaries. In an effective meeting, people are paid to work, not lounge around eating donuts, sipping coffee, and exchanging chitchat.

Employees admire effective leaders. And they want to work for smart companies. Thus, effective meetings reduce employee turnover, which represents significant savings. In contrast, bad meetings bore top performers into quitting.

3) Effective meetings make people powerful

When people work as a team to produce a result, they feel pride and ownership in that result. Thus, they feel inspired by their work. And that translates into greater productivity.

Effective meetings work as a success engine in business. The employees use them as a reliable tool to perform their work. As a result, each success motivates to them to work harder.

People are attracted to leaders who help them.

And good leaders run meetings characterized by achievement. This creates loyalty to the leaders and to the business. In contrast, bad meetings are filled with failure, which causes frustration, resentment, and anger.

4) Effective meetings maximize productivity

When people work as a team, they create synergy. This makes the team more creative and more productive than any one individual.

A group of people knows more than any one person. Unfortunately, bad meetings often showcase a few outspoken members while the rest sit and doodle. This is unfortunate because the quiet ones usually know more.

Short meetings free people to work on the core activities that make money for your business. Bad meetings keep people from performing this essential work.

5) Effective meetings create success

A meeting requires all of the elements of effective leadership, and thus, serves as an excellent teaching venue to develop future leaders.

Many executives use meetings to identify future leaders. Certainly, someone who consistently leads effective meetings should be able to lead larger projects.

All of the benefits of holding effective meetings blend together to make your business more successful. When it becomes part of your culture, then everyone practices the principles in everything that they do. The result is expanding excellence.

Much success,

Steve Kaye
714-528-1300