Harvard Business: The Key to Shorter, Better Meetings

By Anthony Tjan

Here is a simple managerial tip for meeting effectiveness that I learned some years ago.

Outside of general relationship building, consider that there are only three functional purposes for having a business meeting:

1. To inform and bring people up to speed.
2. To seek input from people.
3. To ask for approval.

Use this as a filter to determine why you are having a meeting and explain that purpose to your audience. Your meetings may often cut across multiple objectives but forcing yourself to clarify the agenda into these three purposes can result in more effective meetings. (more)