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Many businesspeople have developed an attitude that meetings are pointless and waste of time. Sadly, many of the meetings are. But it is not because meetings itself are bad, but because they are badly organized, badly run or used in the situations, when other communication methods are more efficient.

Meetings allow people seeing eye-to-eye and direct communication, which enables to express and see feelings and emotions better than any other communication channel. The risk of misunderstanding each other is lower in case of meetings and there is an immediate option for asking questions and clarifying misunderstandings. It makes meetings an efficient tool for communication and solving problems. But meetings are good only in some situations.

On the general meeting other people is justified in the following situations:

• Making complex decisions. If there is a need to work out a solution to a specific problem and if it calls for longer discussion then organizing a meeting is a good idea. It allows people to present their opinion and arguments. Meetings are especially justified if there is a need to involve many people in the decision process and it is necessary to have each of them to participate in discussion.
• Generating new ideas. If people come together then they are away form their other tasks and it can increase their focus and creativity. If you want to brainstorm new ideas then it is sensible to come together.
• Providing critique to other people. If a subordinate of you has not managed to do his job properly then this issue needs to be immediately discussed. In that case it has to be ensured that there are no misunderstandings. Things have to be clarified and meeting face-to-face is a best option for that.

At the same time meetings are not very efficient in some occasions such as:

• Delivering simple information. You can do it on meetings, but it is really a waste of time. There is no point in bringing people together for presenting some informational matters such as work schedules, regular reports or some other kind of simple information. Meetings are pointless if the only point of communication is delivering information without expecting active feedback from the participants.
• Working on tasks which need individual activities. It sometimes happens that people are brought together for discussing and solving problems about some projects. At the same time these problems may call for individual work from some parties. For example, after making one decision then there has to be done some research or compiled a presentation before it is possible to move on. In that case the meeting should be held only for making the decision and it should be ended after the decision is reached. Then people should be assigned their individual tasks (research and presentation compilation in this example) and only if these have been completed then people can be brought together for the next meeting. It is especially harmful for people’s time if during the meeting some people are doing some individual work and other participants have to wait for them to finish.
• Turning down offers. If you want to say “no” to an offer then usually it is not worth time meeting the person. In addition, if you are facing a pushy salesperson then turning down an offer can be time wasting if you meet him and he will not let you go.

kristjan Business, time management communication, creativity, meetings