In general, I tend to enjoy work meetings, but many business professionals dislike them – and often with good reason. Some detest them. Others bemoan their lack of ability to get any “real work” done when meetings pile up. Even the late Peter Drucker considered meetings a necessary evil.

Poorly run meetings can be exasperating. But productive meetings are essential for collaboration, decision-making and team effectiveness. Meetings are also expensive and can waste considerable time due to disorganization, lack of discipline and ambiguity. These best practices can help your meeting stand out, whether you are an organizer, presenter or participant – both for in-person and multi-site.

Before the Meeting

Identify the desired outcome. What is the purpose of the meeting? It is to inform, brainstorm, plan, persuade, decide, etc.? What do you hope to accomplish by the end?

Create the meeting agenda. If you are the meeting organizer, this is absolutely essential. The agenda should include items, presenters, and times for each item – and should be distributed in advance to allow all participants time to prepare. If you are not the organizer, make sure to ask for an agenda before attending a meeting to make sure it is a productive use of your time to attend.

Send invitations. The busier your audience, the earlier your meeting invitations should be sent. Always include the purpose, agenda and any critical materials.

During the Meeting

Begin & end on time. Respect everyone’s calendar by maintaining scheduling discipline. Meetings that run late can create a domino effect of late meetings for an entire day. Not only that, being late penalizes the punctual and rewards the tardy (Tweet).

State the desired outcome up front. Your participants should already know the meeting purpose and agenda when they arrive, but repeat them anyway.

Be fully engaged. If you are presenting, be intentional about the energy you project. You’ll get what you give. Solicit participation. Use the appropriate level of detail. If you are a participant, come prepared and be fully present. (Resist the urge to take phone calls or check emails). Capture your own key notes whether or not there is a designated scribe. (Meeting minutes are usually not critical.)

Follow the agenda. Maintain agenda discipline (this is why it is important to share the agenda upfront). Dial-down over-participation. If out of scope items come up, use a temporary “parking lot.” If new relevant items come up, suggest either reorganizing the agenda or addressing in a future meeting.

Summarize key decisions made and action items. Always leave a few minutes at the end of the meeting to review what has been decided and clarify next steps (who will do what by when?). If you skip this step, you risk wasting all the progress made.

Determine the next meeting time frame. You don’t need to have a specific date set in the meeting, but you should agree on the general time frame.

After the Meeting

Distribute a summary. As soon as possible following a key meeting, send a follow-up summary of progress made, key decisions made, action items (with names and due dates) and what they should expect next (e.g. a follow-up meeting).

Schedule follow-up meeting(s). If there will be a future meeting, schedule it as soon as possible.

Bonus

Make it fun. Just by following these steps, your meetings should stand out from the rest. But anything extra you can do to help your audience look forward to attending your meetings will go a long way. One team I’ve worked with reserves the last two minutes for a semi-impromptu dance-off just to reinforce that it’s a fun team to be on. That may not be appropriate in other meetings, but a little creativity can add an engaging touch.

Meetings are here to stay. Productive, engaging meetings create a productive, engaging culture (Tweet). Organizing a meeting definitely qualifies as a leadership opportunity.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

Regardless of what you aspire to do, excellence is a worthy goal. But it probably won’t be your starting point. So how do you get there? Try this.

Is it Worth It?

This may be a new idea for you, but you can do anything you want. You just can’t do everything you want. There are always limits to time and resources. That means you’ll have to make some tough choices along the way.

If you could be excellent at your current endeavor, would it be worth doing? Or is it simply a means to another end? Invest yourself accordingly. Don’t bet the pot on side projects. Go big when it counts.

Don’t Compare

Dave Ramsey likes to say that 15 minutes of fame can take a lifetime to attain. Unless you are a prodigy, someone else’s proven track record of excellence will far outshine your humble beginnings. Don’t let that stop you. Their first attempts probably weren’t excellent either. If you have something to contribute, be willing to contribute your best effort now with the understanding that it will improve over time.

Pick Something You Have a Passion For

Dale Carnegie loved performing as an actor – but he wasn’t very good at it. He also wasn’t a great salesman. But when he discovered a complete lack of public speaking and communications training in his market, a match was made in heaven. He quickly develop a training program that turned shy and timid professionals into confident performers in their everyday roles. That training program still exists 100 years later. When you love what you do, it’s much easier to become excellent. If you don’t love it, wouldn’t you be doing everyone a favor by investing in something else? Possess a passion that keeps you moving.

Harness a Commitment for Growth

Individualism is the American way, but it will kill your chances to go from good to great. “But I prefer to do things my way.” “I have a special system.” That’s great. But if the best still invest in coaches, teachers, additional training and more practice, you certainly should as well. Best practices aren’t always set in stone for all-time (otherwise how would best practices change?). But you need to know the “rules” before you break the them. And once you do, maintain a healthy appetite for continuous improvement through growth. Don’t let a taste of excellence deter you from reaching new heights.

Start

I asked a musician friend of mine once how he wrote so many great songs. He said that he wrote one new song a week. Were they all good? No, some were terrible. But others weren’t. That’s when it clicked. Excellence is more about perseverance than genius.

Zig Ziglar put it this way, “You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.”

Start.

Start where you are. Start with what you have. Just start.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

Take a moment to think of someone important to you (e.g. boss, spouse, customer, etc.).

What is one thing he or she wants that may not be particularly important to you?

View the rest of the Powerful Questions series by clicking here.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.