It seems we spend more time than ever in meetings, but is the time well spent? There’s a tale about Will Rogers being invited to sit in on a committee meeting of an organization that ordinarily didn’t...

It seems we spend more time than ever in meetings, but is the time
well spent? There’s a tale about Will Rogers being invited to sit in on
a committee meeting of an organization that ordinarily didn’t permit
the presence of outsiders. When the meeting was over, Will remarked,
“I agreed to repeat nothing and I’ll keep my promise. But I gotta admit, I heard
nothing worth repeating.” You can’t afford to have your Scorecard team
members thinking, or worse yet, saying something similar after your
meetings. And you will have meetings. Recent studies suggest that over
65 percent of Scorecard-implementing organizations used work meetings
to accomplish their tasks. Here are a few things you can do to
maximize the effectiveness of your Balanced Scorecard meetings:
• Determine your purpose. Are you holding the meeting to share information,
generate ideas, and the like?
• Determine desired outcomes. What do you want to accomplish during
the session? Ensure that everyone is aware of the desired outcomes
when the meeting begins.
• Evaluate attendance. Nobody likes being invited to a meeting in which
they have little to contribute. Determine who you need in attendance
and simply distribute minutes to those who are not essential
to achieving your outcomes.
• Assign roles. Determine in advance who will facilitate the meeting,
who will act as the scribe, and who will fulfill the vital role of timekeeper.
• Provide structured prework. Provide attendees with relevant materials
well in advance of the meeting and emphasize the importance of
completing the prework.
• Stay on time. Get in the habit of starting and ending all meetings on
time. Do not reward late comers by reviewing what they have missed.
Several excellent articles and books have been written on the topic of
effective meeting management. For a simple and pragmatic look at
the subject, see Thomas Kayser’s 1990 book, Mining Group Gold (Serif
Publishing).