Use a “police Officer” to Keep Business Meetings up-to-Date
When you have a workshop, the more people are invited, the easier things get upset, so every meeting requires a “Police” meeting to keep the discussion going.
While everyone is gathered to talk about the big project that is wrapping up this week, inevitably someone will decide that “since we’re all here …” it would be nice to bring up another project that starts in a few weeks. now, by the way, what’s with the coffee maker? This is broken? Have you seen John’s new puppy? Let’s take a break from the conversation to look at his pictures for 10 minutes.
Meeting the “cop” is exactly what it sounds like. It is the officer’s job to make sure the meeting continues on the topic and, if it starts to drift, speak up. He or she will also keep an eye on the clock and make sure the meeting proceeds according to his or her agenda.
This person should not be the meeting organizer and should have a copy of the meeting agenda with what needs to be discussed and the amount of time allotted for each topic.
For example, if your meeting is about a new ad campaign, and you have allocated 15 minutes to talk about the schedule and 10 minutes to talk about music, then after 15 minutes with the graphics, the officer will make sure everyone knows and push the meeting to move on to the next topic. If something off-topic arises, he or she can write it down for review later.
The idea here is that the meeting organizer can sometimes keep the discussion on one aspect of the topic too long, so it is good to have another source in charge of timing. Also, if you have a lot to do in a meeting, then letting one aspect of it work for a long time (or giving up time for other topics like John’s dog – I mean, did you see that?!?), Then the other there is not enough.
This idea may seem (and may seem) a little off-putting at first, but if it’s something that your business regularly implements, it could revolutionize your meetings. Knowing that you have 15 minutes and only 15 minutes to discuss something makes people stay relevant and effective, and knowing that the meeting will start and end on time makes everyone a little more inclined to participate.
An organized meeting about a topic will generally be much more productive and give you the added bonus of not having to plan another one because you didn’t have enough time to get it right on the first try.