The Problem with Agendas

Having a meeting? So you need an agenda? Circulate it 24 hours in advance? Book an hour in the conference room. Right?

Wrong!

Because having an agenda means just that, you ‘have an agenda’. It’s your agenda. You own the meeting therefore it’s not owned by the participants. There’s no group buy-in. Or perhaps each participant owns a different part of a siloed meeting which lacks unity of purpose.

Here’s a better kind of meeting. Define the issue that you need to resolve. Then invite the people who can help you solve it and who have a stake in the outcome.

What about the agenda? Decide that with the participants at the start of the meeting, so everyone owns it.

Tags: Agendas, buy-in, conference room, meetings, participants, Problem, purpose, siloed meeting, unity