Time is Precious

Have you ever been in a three hour meeting, with an agenda, that produced no results?

None?

Absolutely none?

Have you ever been in a meeting where there was really just one thing that needed to be decided, and three hours later, you walked out without that information?

Time is Precious.

Yours.

Mine.

Ours.

We should strive to use it wisely.

Sure, they'll be goof off days.  We all need those every now and then.

But, seriously, I know I'm preaching to the choir when I say, time wasted is time lost.

One of my illustrious leaders was chronically late to meetings.  After getting upset about it, we decided to place bets on what time we thought he would arrive.  The bets were 50 cents, and the biggest haul was $4.50.

Was it wrong to place a bet?

Maybe, but it sure made the wait time much easier to deal with.

What's really important here is how little regard this man had for our time.  His was the only one that mattered.

I believe we need to honor people's time.

I had a policy -

Meetings started on time and ended on time.

No meeting was held if there wasn't anything new to share.

If you were late or missed a meeting, you were responsible for the content.

There was purpose.

There was an agenda

And

We followed it.

If action were needed, it happened.

I'd like to think the meetings, and the way they were executed, were valuable for everyone.  They were definitely valuable to me.

That just it - leader sets the tone.

Sometime that tone is succinct.

Other times, it's long-winded, convoluted, and tortuous.