Page 185 - Becoming a Successful Manager

176 BUILDING ON YOUR FOUNDATION

covered at all times, and productivity continued. If the whole
department is required to attend, you have to ask yourself who
is minding the store. If only selected individuals are required to
attend, decide who, as well as how they will be notifi ed. In such
cases, in the spirit of goodwill and information sharing, you may
want to inform the other members of the department why they
were not invited.
If there will be guests, who are they and what will their roles
be? Will your staff be told in advance, and if so, how? Decide what
method you will use to ensure that complete information is avail-
able to all parties.
For our example, as the manager, I might say, “I want all sales
people to attend so they can share, learn from others, and make
sure their activities and results are aligned with the team sales
goals.” This clearly states who I need at the meeting and why.

Scheduling: Time and Agenda

A successful manager conducts a meeting only because it is neces-
sary and not because it is habit. Have you ever been to meetings
you felt you did not need to attend? Or perhaps the meeting was
valuable for the fi rst 30 minutes, but not the last hour.
Too many managers have meetings for the wrong reasons, with-
out enough preparations, and without the control needed to run
them. When you and your employees are occupied at a meeting,
the functional tasks for which you are responsible are not being
performed. They will be taken care of sometime, of course, but

they now have to be fit into the time remaining after the meeting
rather than within the full workday. This is why short, concise, and
productive meetings are so important. Everyone’s time is valuable,
so be sure you demonstrate your recognition of that value.