One topic that everyone can agree on is this: Meetings are often a waste of time and money. Here are some symptoms of bad meetings, and what you can do to fix them.
Losing Focus
People are doing their own thing during the meeting – texting, talking on the phone, responding to email, carrying on unrelated conversations.
One way to avoid this is to establish ground rules that everyone agrees on before the meeting begins. These rules include removing temptation by setting limits on texting, email and phone conversations, and requiring people to listen without interrupting. Even if people have agreed in advance to these rules, they may need to be reminded of the ground rules at the beginning of the meeting or during the meeting itself if the rule-breaking is particularly egregious. Such reminding may be done by fellow members or by the meeting leader if there is one.