The Bottom Line Vine

Ever have a short “Break Out Meeting” that descends into a long drawn out mind numbingly senseless production? At my old company, these types of meetings were so common I started scheduling for the run over. Usually we weren’t getting off topic but a few members of the team were able to draw out the meeting by asking inane questions and answering with overly redundant buzz words.

When I was appointed team leader on a new project, I tried something I had heard about years ago… I dragged all of the chairs out of the conference room and held the meeting standing up. It was surprisingly effective. People don’t want to stand for an hour, so everyone got straight to the point, cutting the meeting down to about 15 minutes while still hitting all the important points. After that we kept the chairs in the conference room, but pushed them back and stood for all of our short meetings.

Obviously you are not going to try this for a strategic planning meeting or a meeting with clients, but it is a great way to keep your short meetings short.

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