At the beginning of my career, i worked in a team where the team leader will have morning meetings every day.  He missed none and expected all team members to be there on time, even if they had to leave the hospital with a drip in their veins. It’s a bit of an exaggeration but we all met in our professional lives bosses-fans-of-meetings. I now understand the reason he was so adamant about it: it was matching his command-and-control type of leadership and he believed it was good for the team discipline. It worked. The project did bring results. Back then electronic means of communication were largely science-fiction so personal interaction was pretty much the only control tool he had in his arsenal.

I love to attend meetings when the objective is clear and all are committed to respecting others’ time. I also organised numerous team meetings with a variety of objectives: for instance, progress review, check-in, decision-making meetings. I will not pretend all meetings I organised achieved their objective and that was fine as it gave me a number of lessons-learned I carry in my tools box.

As September approaches and the work will get speedier after Summer breaks, their majesties – The Meetings – will make their entrance. If you are looking for inspiration on how to have meaningful, productive and beneficial meetings, here is a number of great tips and a great variety for inspiration:

The big idea: Meetings, the ultimate time-suck, and how to fix them

Enjoy reading and watching!