driven tasks, and can add significantly to job stress.
May Not Be Cost Effective: Meetings are more expensive than most people realize.
When employees are attending meetings, they are not doing their normal jobs. The cost
of the meeting includes not only their salaries for that hour, but also costs for vacations,
holidays, sick leave, medical insurance, Social Security, travel time, and so on. The
meeting must therefore provide information important enough to justify the cost
associated with it.
May Water Down Decisions: Unless a meeting is properly conducted and its members
are committed to effectiveness, the decisions made at the meeting may simply reflect
the average input of members, rather than the ideas of the best members. Sometimes
opinions voiced by the group’s brightest or best-informed members may not be
accepted by the majority. At other times, knowledgeable members may suppress their
own disagreements simply for the sake of harmony.
May Become Too Impersonal: Meetings may not allow the personal interaction
required for many sensitive issues. On a one–on–oneperson–to-person basis, employees
may communicate readily to their supervisor. But because Because a meeting involves
a more formal setting with many people present, some employees will be reluctant to
speak up.
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: Difficulty: Moderate
LEARNING OBJECTIVES: SPMT.MOSL.15.10.04
NATIONAL STANDARDS: United States – BUSPROG: Analytic
KEYWORDS: Bloom‘s: Comprehension
68. What are some of the things that should be done to pre-plan a meeting effectively and ensure its success?
1. Make sure that the people who are to attend the meeting have adequate advance
2. Make sure that key people will be able to attend.
3. Develop and distribute copies of the meeting agenda in advance. This will enables
4. Let people know in advance if they will beare expected to provide information or
5. Check to see that the meeting room is arranged as you desire and that the visual aids
6. Form a general idea of how long the meeting should last. You may want to indicate