Effective Meeting Skills, Revised

Marion E. Haynes has written a book with a good grounding in planning, organizing and running effective meetings. Although the book is brief, it is packed with what it takes to plan, execute and manage productive meetings. The author highlights the critical role of the meeting leader to ensure that a meeting progresses to its stated goals, ensure that all participants make their contributions, moderate conflicts, deal with disruptive and inattentive participants, summarize action items and closing a meeting on an upbeat and positive note. This is a well written book that is written in plain English and that is easy to follow and understand. Readers will learn, among other things, the importance of having clear agendas which states the purpose of the meeting, starting and ending meetings on time, problem solving, stimulating participation and discussion and writing the record of the meeting, following up on action items and evaluating meeting effectiveness. The book is an important reference guide that is well worth reading.

The book boiled down the basic skills and walked through how they should be implemented. I made a generic guide for myself and the quality of my meetings improved dramatically.

Nice, short, concise format for managers. Gets to the point with some meaningful tips beyond introductory level, going to addressing meeting problems and meeting follow-up and evaluation. Simple quizes to evaluate your understanding of the books content as you go. Example checklists help you get the meeting right.