Meetings should be opportunities to advance a business or organization. Colleagues come together to achieve a goal. Thus, all meetings should have a specific purpose. Companies measure the success of the time spent by whether they met the reason for calling the meeting. Quite often, participants fail to accomplish what they set out to do. Sometimes, this failure occurs because the leader did not set a clear agenda. In other cases, things get off track when the discussion switches to trivial things.
To help readers know when things are going wrong, and they are wasting time, here are 25 things to avoid talking about in a meeting.
In a meeting do not talk about:
- Your favorite sports teams
- What you are having for dinner
- How well, or poorly, the kids are doing in school
- The shoes you are dying over
- How much money is, or is not, in your bank account
- Your next doctor’s appointment
- The sermon in church on Sunday
- Your new girlfriend or boyfriend
- What you are having for lunch
- Who you support in the presidential race
- Kim Kardashian
- The price of cigarettes
- The Big Bang Theory
- Your new car
- Your children’s boyfriends or girlfriends
- How Mom is doing
- Your romantic life, whether good or bad
- A colleague’s bad breath
- The time your toilet overflowed
- The number of Facebook friends you have
- Which state has the best BBQ
- Whether Matt Ryan will take the Falcons to the Super Bowl
- What style of wedding dress you prefer
- How you did not have time to take a shower this morning
- How many tacos you had at lunch
Maximizing efficiency in the workplace requires using time wisely. One way to do so is to set clear meeting agendas. Then, remain cognizant of when the discussion veers into areas irrelevant to the business at hand.
When people begin talking about things from this list, or similar topics, kindly inform the room that there is still work to be done. Get back to the topic of the meeting as soon as possible.
There may be some who want to make a few last comments about, say Kim Kardashian. Allow a couple of statements but remain adamant about returning to official business. Workers can talk socially in their off time.
For more insight into how to maximize workplace efficiency, contact Leadership Strategies, which, since 1992, has been the leading facilitation company.
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