Meeting Skills: an essential management tool

Meeting skills are communication skills. Meeting skills are essential management tools. That's why I've been conducting workshops on meeting skills for many years, and that's why they form a whole stage in my non-traditional approach to management skills, The Manager's Journey.

How are YOUR meeting skills? The first meeting skills is knowing whether or not a meeting is even necessary or appropriate.

Before you call that meeting, ask yourself if it is really necessary, or if your objective could more easily be achieved by other means. What about a series of telephone calls? Could you just send out e-mail messages to the appropriate people? Perhaps even the lowly memo would serve the same purpose. If your purpose is simply to give out information, with little or no two-way interaction, one of these is often the most effective vehicle. Why take busy people away from their desks for a set amount of time (usually too much time) and sit them around a table—just so that you can fire information at them?

On the other hand, action-oriented, decision-making discussions often demand the face-to-face interaction that is only possible at a meeting. So, how do you decide? Here are three indications of the need for a meeting.