Harvard Business hands down 10 Meeting Commandments

The Harvard Business Communication, a newsletter from Harvard Business School has released what it terms the "Ten Commandments of Business Meetings." I thought they were worth summarizing here.

1. Thou Shalt Always Know What Time It Is

Out of respect for the commitment and sanity of everyone who attends, meetings should never run over the time allotted.

2. Thou Shalt Not Forget the Main Reason for Meetings

The only good reason to have meetings is to do something together that you can't do better alone.

3. Thou Shalt Remember the Golden Rule of Meetings:
Praise in Public, Criticize in Private

Shut off public criticism when it arises. It's extremely destructive to morale and should be prevented. Help your vocally critical teammates by making it clear, in advance of each meeting, who is in charge, how long the meeting will last, and what the point of the meeting is.

4. Thou Shalt Not Convene Meetings Outside of Normal Business Hours

People who schedule meetings for evenings and weekends are merely advertising the embarrassing fact that they have no life, and they're expecting others to give up theirs.

5. Thou Shalt Not Use Group Pressure to Bulldoze Conclusions

Don't misuse group pressure to get people to stray from the straight and narrow, or bend the rules, or set the quotas dangerously high, or cut corners on quality, or any one of a thousand such activities that go on every day in misguided organizations everywhere.

6. Thou Shalt Not Use Meetings to Destroy Others' Careers

There is enough room in every meeting for a disagreement without making it personal or destructive. A petty triumph at someone else's expense at one job may well prove seriously embarrassing at your next job.

7. Thou Shalt Keep the Personal and the Business Distinct

A certain amount of socializing at the beginnings and endings of meetings is part of the grease that keeps the well-oiled machine running smoothly, but the balance should be clearly kept on the side of business.

8. Thou Shalt Remember that the Best Model for Meetings Is Democracy, Not Monarchy

Resist the temptation to railroad your fellow participants into a decision you want. You need to lead by moral persuasion, not by virtue of your title. You don't need a meeting to announce a new course of proceeding that is not up for discussion.

9. Thou Shalt Always Prepare a Clear Agenda and Circulate It Beforehand

It is good efficient business practice to think hard about the purpose, nature and structure of a meeting before it takes place. These thoughts should be codified in the form of an agenda and circulated to all participants well in advance of the meeting.

10. Thou Shalt Terminate Regularly Meetings that serve no purpose

If you can no longer clearly state the reason for having a regular meeting, it's time to stop having the meeting. Goal-setting is just as important in meetings as it is in the rest of corporate life. If there are no goals, there is no meeting.