How do you keep your most talented employees, staff, board members, or association members focused and motivated in meetings, let alone motivating them to attend? The question has frustrated most of us.

Meetings consume ever greater amounts of time, money and energy. Think of last meeting you attended. Was it best use of everyone’s time? Did you walk out with a sense of exhilaration and a clear set of actions and decisions? Or, did you wonder why you even bothered to attend?

People need to feel valued and that they are making a difference not only in their work, but in way they spend their time. Do you know what each of your people want and find most important? Do your meetings reflect needs of people involved? A recent study found that people want to be part of a worthwhile enterprise, be influential in decision-making, and create and contribute to mutually agreed upon objectives. Meetings can be opportunity for this to happen.

These check lists may help you provide more meaningful forums.

Before meeting:

1. Is time invested worth cost? 2. Are key people able to attend? (if not, reschedule) 3. Did you inform all participants of outcomes, objectives, and agenda? 4. Did you handle logistics: meeting room, handouts, audio & visual needs, markers, equipment, etc.

During meeting:

1. State and agree to specific outcomes or objectives. 2. Display an agreed upon agenda. Items can have time allotments. 3. Agree on ground rules such as:

•start and end on time •no side conversations •respect all input •equal participation •focus on agenda •come prepared 4. Agree on meeting roles such as:

•facilitator: assists group unobtrusively to focus on accomplishing given task, helps balance content and process issues, supports ground rules, and brings closure. •recorder: writes down in full view of group (flip chart, white board) their key ideas. Records important issues not on agenda on a “parking lot” chart.

Keeps a separate chart for actions and key decisions.

•time keeper: keeps time and gives periodic warnings. •participants: take responsibility for full participation, focus on agenda, honor ground rules.

5. Meeting evaluation:

Dedicate a few minutes before closure of each meeting to ask:

are ever changing. Old methods are constantly changing and new leaders

must change with them. These demands for leadership are changing so

fast that there is now a lack of people to fill these positions. In

this ever changing enviroment of global business reform is now

definitely called for in doing business.

If organisations are to succeed in this changing enviroment leaders

must be skilled at using their staffs to their full potential, giving

the customer excellent care, have an ability to forsee and implement

use of technology, and not least ability to work cross culturally. What is needed today is leadership that are visionary.

They are first and formost dreamers. They can envision dreams and

inspire others to blossom to their full potential by encouraging them

to dream.

They are able to build global trust and use our diversities to dream

beyond anything that has ever been known to man before this time.

The future CEO will be ask to balance broader social roles that

companies are being ask to play all over world. They will be asked

to manage a diverse multicultural workforce and not least of these

talents will future CEO will be ask to handle painful ethical

issues that arise out of intersection of business and technology.

This new leader will use their understanding of trends in a dynamic

environment to craft a sound strategic direction. They will create

movement by motivating key players to overcome obstacles they

encounter along way. These obstacles will be many and one of

biggest will be CEO's themselves working with a diverse