Focus on behavior. Your goal is to hold an effective meeting -- not teach lessons. If you attempt to punish people, through admonitions, ridicule, or threats, you will make enemies. In short term, that can ruin effectiveness of your meeting, and in long term it can ruin your career. So, when unproductive behavior appears in your meeting, talk about behavior. For example, if a side conversation starts, you could say, "We seem to have more than one meeting going on now, and that's preventing us from working on budget."

Apply diplomatic courage. Leaders project strength and confidence; losers project negativity and fear. Detach from behavior that seems bothersome, realizing it is simply something that other person is doing. Assume that there is no personal intent to damage you. Just talk about what is happening and ask for what you want to happen as shown in above paragraph.

Show what you expect. Be a model for effective meeting behavior. If it is your meeting, or if you hold a leadership role in your organization, realize that others regard you as standard for their actions. If you arrive on time for meetings, others will interpret this to mean that they should come to your meetings on time. If you make positive, appropriate contributions in meetings, others will infer that this is what you expect from them.

Apply these strategies to make your meetings effective.

This is first of a seven part article on Managing Monsters in Meetings.

The bad news is that being a human being means we have abilities and failings of human beings. We make mistakes. We get tired. We get distracted. We fail to communicate clearly and accurately. When we set perfection as our goal, all of our actions are based on attempts to conquer our natural human limits with little or no intention on ultimate outcome. The search for perfection limits our ability to act meaningfully.

Acting in accordance with standards of excellence allows us to produce superb results and opens door to experimentation and creativity.