by Elaine Arthur

Created on: June 17, 2010

A meeting agenda serves the worthy purpose of letting attendees know which topics will be under discussion.  The order of the agenda items indicates the priority given to each topic.  Nearly every meeting has an agenda of some sort.  The question, then, is why are some meetings more successful than others?

Put simply, a successful meeting is one from which the attendees can go away feeling that their time has been well-spent.  They either learned something from the other attendees, or imparted information to them.  A problem was posed, and a solution agreed upon.  It is felt that the next meeting will allow the attendees to announce the resolution of a particular problem or set of problems, so that a new topic may be introduced.

Meetings generally have a bad reputation because unfortunately, the overwhelming majority do not fit the description above.  People usually leave meetings thinking "That was an hour of my life I'll never be able to get back."  They know that the next time they meet, the same "old business" will be on the slate, and the same issues will be tossed around the room like a hot potato.  Is there a way out of this frustrating meeting maze?

People who lead meetings should try to keep in mind that there's "macro," and then there's "micro," and the two should be kept as far apart as possible.

As an example, a neighborhood association may meet monthly to discuss various topics.  This community wishes to remain a viable part of the larger city; crime needs to be kept to a minimum and the youth need guidance and healthy outlets.  Property values will ideally rise. 

These are "macro" issues.  These are the big "Why's," the reason the neighborhood association exists in the first place.  These larger purposes never go away; they underlie everything else that is discussed at these meetings.  They might be added to the association's mission statement, and that statement may even be displayed on a permanent sign that is brought to each meeting, as a reminder. 

These issues, however, are not open to discussion in detail at every meeting.  Introducing lofty, pie-in-the-sky concepts such as "We've GOT to do something for our youth – they are our future!" sounds wonderfully dramatic in a historical document, but on the micro level it does little or nothing to improve the concrete conditions in the community.  When these ideas are presented at meetings, they can

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