June 17, 2002, 12:00 AM — Having good, effective meetings is a tricky business these days. Having
them is more than just having a meaningful agenda and sticking to the
time allotments for the discussion items. There are also many modes of
having meetings. It's important to decide which one is the right one for
the right situation.
With the increased demands of time on schedules, need to be in several
places, global associations, and ease of access through online
communication channels, it's easy to loose sight of a few of the
beneficial elements of in-person meetings. The barrage of email
exchanges coupled with instant messaging and online chat are starting to
depersonalize and fragment the teams you've been so painstakingly
building and inter-department relationships you've been nurturing. We're
starting to lose the "P" and "C" inherent in meetings, such as:
* People
* Peers
* Personal
* Professional
* Processes
and
* Communication
* Collaboration
* Cooperation
* Colleague
* Constructive competition (through stimulation)
Tone of voice, inflection, facial clues, body language are not part of
online interactions. And the lack of personal contact dehumanizes the
speaker. Misinterpretations of the words can easily be made so that a
simple statement of fact gets construed as a boast or confrontation. A
delay in response gets interpreted as apathy instead of a call to
resolve an emergency.
It's not only important that you have your people meet at regular
intervals to touch base on what's going on. It's important to use as
many of your possible meeting modes effectively so that you contain
costs while still building those essentials to managing your department
- developing good communication, collaboration, get feedback, and have a
dedicated period of time when all of this occurs.
There are at least four modes of having meetings that we'll discuss in
this three-part series: in-person and voice meetings, web conferences,
and video conferences. These are in addition to chat meetings. One of
the downsides of chat is that you're still dealing with a voiceless,
formless audience that has little sense of the real person on the other
side of the monitor.
