How to assess whether to have a meeting or not

In the middle of your workday, you receive an email telling you that the office will have a meeting tomorrow before lunch.

And then, you tell yourself that the meeting could have been just an email. At the back of your mind, you know that the meeting was just an excuse to have a free lunch at work.

What if you have the power to change that?

From the MBA class I took on Storytelling and influencing: Communicate with impact, here’s how to assess whether things should be discussed through a meeting or not:

1. Does it have to be a meeting? Can it be handled in any other way?
2. Does everyone invited really have to be there? Is there anyone who should be there but isn’t, for example, the decision-maker?
3. Does it have to be an hour? Or could it be 30 minutes or less?
4. Do we know the point of the meeting? The overall outcome?
5. Is it being led properly?
6. Do we know what we are expected to do before, during, and after?

Asking these questions can change how you do meetings for the better. And hopefully, you will never be that colleague who’s in the meeting just for the doughnuts.

I believe that attention is a precious resource. And when we get the opportunity to have someone’s attention, we better not waste it.

If you find that having a meeting is necessary, here’s how to hold a successful meeting.