Business Without the Bullsh*t: 49 Secrets and Shortcuts You Need to Know (11 page)

Business meetings have never been more popular. About 25 million meetings take place
every day
in corporate America alone. Conservatively, at least half of that time is wasted by aimless presentations and pointless discussions.

Because of this, attend business meetings sparingly and only if it advances your own agenda. Remember: if you spend only ninety minutes a day (on average) in meetings, by the time you’re sixty-five they will have consumed
eight years
of your working life.

In “Secret 18. How to Hold a Productive Meeting,” I explain how to make your own meetings go smoothly. In this secret I explain how to attend only those meetings that are useful, and how to work your own agenda into the meetings you do attend.

A business meeting consumes time, and since you have a limited amount of time, you want to attend only those business meetings that move you closer to your goals. This is impossible if you don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish.

If you do decide to attend a business meeting, you want the actions
you take during the meeting to move you closer to your goals. Once again, impossible if you don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish.

Therefore, whenever you are confronted with the opportunity to attend a meeting, you should first review your personal and career goals so you can assess whether it will be time well spent, and how you’ll spend the time if you attend.

Your strategy for dealing with a meeting varies according to the type of meeting. People call meetings for seven reasons:

As a general rule, meetings you’re asked to attend due to reasons 1 or 2 are more likely to be useful to you than meetings you’re asked to attend due to reasons 3 through 7. However (and unfortunately), you
probably will not be able to avoid all the meetings that are not useful to you, especially if they’re called by your boss or the coworkers who’ve got clout.

As explained above, some meetings are mandatory while others are not. If you’re absolutely required to attend a meeting, skip to Step 4.

However, if there’s any question as to whether your presence is required, compare your own goals to the meeting’s reason and decide whether the benefit of attending is greater than the benefit of doing something else. To make this decision, ask yourself two questions: “What’s in it for me?” and “What if I pass on it?”

Your boss’s peer has asked the entire division (including his group and your boss’s) to attend a meeting where the peer will give the presentation that he’s planning to give to top management next week. You ask yourself:

In this case you probably want to attend.

You’re an engineering manager whom the marketing group has invited to a group writing session for a press release about a new product design. You ask:

In this case you pass. Rather than attending, you send an e-mail with the technical specs you think should be included, along with a reminder that you’d like to review the final version before it’s released to the press.

After asking the two questions (as shown in the examples above), decide whether it makes sense for you to attend. If it does, skip to Step 4.

If it doesn’t make sense for you to attend, create an excuse that’s plausible but not insulting.

“It sounds like a waste of time.”

“I have better things to do.”

“I have a scheduling conflict.”

“I have to meet a deadline.”

If you’ve gotten to this step, you’re definitely attending the meeting. Your goal is now to make certain that you can contribute in a way
that reinforces your agenda, even if that only means looking good at the meeting.

Research the background of the topics that will be discussed. This is easy if there’s a published agenda. If there isn’t, ask whoever called the meeting what will be discussed and how you should best prepare.

For example, suppose you’re a marketing manager whose goal is to create advertisements that generate sales leads. You’ve been asked to a meeting with the sales team to discuss how the company can sell more to the automobile industry.

In accordance with Step 3, you ask yourself:

On the basis of your answers, you decide to attend. Because you’re going to be asking the salespeople for a favor (sharing their personal contacts with you), you want to come into the meeting with something that helps the salespeople.

You therefore get online and read up on buying trends in the automobile industry. You now have something substantive to contribute, which will help you work your own agenda (getting the contact names).

As the meeting progresses, take notes (either mentally, on your device, or on paper) about what’s said. Look for areas of discussion where you might be able to either add value (which will burnish your reputation) or push your own agenda.

These notes are important because when you do say something,
you want it to come out as a complete thought, rather than a half-prepared remark that peters out in the middle because you can’t remember exactly what you were going to say.

Novice meeting attendees either blurt out their ideas and opinions at the first break in the conversation or delay saying something until after the meeting has moved on to another topic.

Experienced meeting attendees know that the trick to contributing to a meeting (and looking good in the process) is to make your remarks toward the end of that part of the discussion.

When you express your own view or add your contribution, speak confidently and in complete sentences; then, if appropriate, ask a question that you feel will move the discussion in a direction in which you’d like to see the meeting go.

For example, suppose you’re in the marketing/sales meeting described in Step 4. To recap, you want the salespeople to use their contacts to give you reference accounts for an advertisement. In preparation for the meeting, you’ve researched buying habits in the automotive industry.

During the meeting a salesperson complains that it’s difficult to get CEOs of auto-supply firms to return calls. Several other salespeople echo this sentiment. When you sense that the topic is almost exhausted, you say, “My research into buying patterns in the automotive industry says that what really motivates CEOs to buy from a vendor is a recommendation from another CEO. What if we ran an ad featuring a CEO who’s our current customer?”

Bringing up your idea at this point—when other people have spoken their minds—is far more likely to result in the support of the other attendees than if, for example, you tried to get your market research, or your request for a reference account, directly onto the agenda.