Introduction
Meetings are very important in a day to day running of any organization. Managers have to gather meetings once in a while to discuss various issues that may affect their organization and come up with possible solutions to these issues (Henkel 2007). It is important to make sure that these meetings are interesting. It is, therefore, important that people who are tasked with the responsibility of organizing meetings are able to avoid the seven deadly sins of meetings.
I have recently attended a meeting in my neighborhood that was address the rising cases of insecurity and how well the problem should be solved. The organizers of the meeting simply went from door to door informing people of where the meeting would take place, the agenda of the meeting and the time the meeting would start. Since we are all affected by the issue of insecurity, I decided to attend the meeting alongside my parents.
However, the organizers of the meeting committed one of the seven deadly sins of meeting. The meeting took too long. People became restless and one by one they began leaving the venue. The organizers had not taken into account the fact that people had other important matters to attend too.
There were too many speakers in the meeting. As a result, it was a total failure as the earlier set objectives were not met. This is because by the time the organizers had been concluding the meeting, most of the people had already left. It was impossible to make a binding decision in the absence of most residents of the neighborhood.
Still, it would have been possible for the organizers of the meeting to avoid committing the sin had they considered the following factors.
Good time management
The meeting should have taken a maximum of 90 minutes. This is because the meeting comprised of different people who had various commitments elsewhere. Each section of the meeting would have been allocated some definite period of time (Henkel 71). This is important in order to ensure that all the objectives that had been set would be met. This was failed because people spent more time discussing the issues and in the end did not have enough time to come up with solutions to the problem that had been raised.
Proper use of technology
The use of technology would have also helped a great deal. The organizers of the meeting should have hired a sound system assistant and acquire the appropriate technology to make sure that everyone was able to hear what was being discussed. I think it would have also helped a lot by using a projector to help highlight some of the main points that were being discussed.
Limiting the number of speakers
The organizers should have also ensured that hey limited the number of people to address the meeting. Most of the people who addressed the meeting kept on repeating some of the things that the speakers had already addressed earlier. This would have saved on time as well as help avoid repetitions (Henkel 91).
Conclusion
It is important that meetings are planned well in advance. The people tasked with the responsibility of planning the meetings should ensure that they do not commit any of the seven deadly sins of meetings. It is important to meet the set objectives while also ensure that meetings are interesting and do not consume much time.
Reference
Henkel, S. L. (2007). Successful meetings: how to plan, prepare, and execute top- notch business meetings. Ocala, Fla.: Atlantic Pub. Group.