Stop the Meeting I Want to Get Off!: How to Eliminate Endless Meetings While Improving Your Team's Communication, Productivity, and Effectiveness

Today's managers spend between one quarter and three quarters of their workday attending meetings. At least half of all meeting time is unproductive if not destructive. This assault on a manager's time (not to mention the time of everyone in attendance) has been mounting for the last two decades, as participative management models have made their way into everyday corporate practice. Many of today's companies follow work team concepts, communal quality controls and group problem-solving techniques. Everybody seems to have their say at once, and meetings abound. We hate meetings, but we surrender to them. There's got to be a better way. Leadership expert, West Point graduate, and Desert Storm Platoon Leader turned corporate consultant Scott Snair offers managers a system for running a department or enterprise without unnecessary meetings - as well as eluding the unnecessary meetings of others. Snair's book introduces alternatives to meetings - explaining better ways to gather input and improved ways and means of communication. The key is one-on-one management and the benefits are many, including: How to save time communicating and influencing key members of the organization one at a time; How to increase productivity by offering guidance and undiluted work direction without stifling openness and job satisfaction; How effective delegating will actually make a manager more "hands-on" and how to use responsibility as a reward; Of course, some meetings are unavoidable and the author presents the "rules of engagement" for a successful meeting that ends with accountability and implementation. The author's process for running any business without meetings has proven effective and has been used by many of his clients at Johnson & Johnson, GE Medical Systems, and McKinsey & Company.