From an article by Tom Krattenmaker in HBS Working Knowledge: Career Effectiveness: In Search of the Perfect Meeting:

“The biggest complaints I hear about meetings are that they’re unproductive, that they last too long, that they’re unnecessary,” says Frances A. Micale, an Atlanta-based consultant and trainer, and the author of Not Another Meeting! A Practical Guide for Facilitating Effective Meetings (Oasis, 2002).

“Yet at their best, meetings can mean everything to an organization,” she says. “If you can consistently have good, productive meetings, your company is going to perform better. I don’t think a lot of people think of it this way, but better meetings mean better communication and better decisions, and that’s going to have a direct impact on the bottom line.”

I wrote a little riff on meetings a while back, as did Steve Smith. And a few years back, Steve and I did a tutorial on effective meetings at the SM conference. I ran into a guy who was in that tutorial last week… he reported that he’d implemented much of what we taught, and it’s made a big difference.

Krattenmaker covers much of the same territory Steve and I did — but in Harvard Management Communication Letter, so now you’ll listen right? 🙂