“The Seven Sins of Deadly

Meetings”

Presented by: Mahmud Fagge

IntroductionToday, we want to take a look at:• The Role of Meetings• The seven sins of deadly meeting and how we can overcome

them• Conclusion

MeetingsMeetings are the most universal -- and universally despised -- part of business life. But bad meetings do more than ruin an otherwise pleasant day. Bad meetings make bad companies.

We will go through the seven sins of deadly meetings and, more important, the seven steps to salvation.

Sin #1

People don’t take meetings seriously… arriving late, leaving early, doodling…

Salvation: • Have the mind-set that meetings are real work.• The company Intel adopted such a mind-set. Every new

employee, from the most junior production worker to the highest ranking executive, is required to take the company's home-grown course on effective meetings.

Sin #2

Meetings are too long, they should accomplish 2x as much in half the time

Salvation:

• People underestimate how expensive meetings are. Time is money, track the cost of you meetings.

• Also, use technology to make them more productive and efficient.

Sin #3

People wander off topic. Participants spend more time digressing than discussing.

Salvation:• Get serious about agendas and stick to them.

• Intel’s agenda: consist of key topics, designated parts of the discussions, length of each segment, expected outcomes, etc.

• keep meetings focused without stifling creativity or insulting participants who stray

Sin #4

Nothing happens after meetings

Salvation:• Start getting things done – use shared documents that lead to actions• Make sure everyone leaves on the same note

Sin #5

People don’t tell the truth… don’t speak their minds

Salvation:• This can be attributed to many reasons like

having a leader that doesn’t facilitate participation or dominant personalities.

• To lessen some of that feeling, embrace anonymity.

Sin #6

Missing information in meetings postpone critical decision-making

Salvation:• Get data, not just furniture into meetings• Computer-centric meeting rooms are the way to

the future. Computer-services giant EDS is known for creating such meeting facilities.

Sin #7

Meetings don’t get any better, people make the same mistakes

Salvation:• Practice makes perfect, monitor what works,

what doesn’t.• Financial services company Charles Schwab

does this by having someone serve as an “observer”

Conclusion

More and more companies are becoming team based and so meetings are going to be with us for a long time. Therefore we have to just make meetings more manageable by exercising these techniques.

Questions?