By Ashoke Menon, Founder of Ignite for Schools
The amount of meetings your leadership runs is a reflection of the culture of your school, department or district. Meetings matter because that’s where an organization’s culture perpetuates itself. Meetings are how an organization says, ‘You are a member.’ So if every day we go to boring meetings full of boring people, then we can’t help but think that this is a boring school. Bad meetings can be a source of negative messages about your organization and your leadership.
Here are 3 key questions to help you to create a meaningful meeting experience.
1. What do you (the meeting requester) want to get out of the meeting?
2. What do you want the participants to experience from the meeting?
3. What are you and your participants going to take ACTION on after the meeting?
The answers to the these questions will help you plan your next meeting more effectively!
In addition, before you call a meeting you must know the ‘cost’.
If there are 50 people in attendance—and your staff meeting runs 45 minutes—you have a total of 225 minutes in attendance. And if the people are getting paid on the average of $50/hr–you just invested or LOST $12,000 (based on your perspective).
Do you still want to call this meeting?
If you are not sure of the answer to the question above—then DON’T call the meeting. Disseminate your information through another, cheaper and less expensive manner.
If your answer is YES—Then , make sure you fully KNOW your purpose!
Image: Flickr tamuc