“You have a meeting to make a decision

“You have a meeting to make a decision, not to decide on the question.” – Bill Gates. Meeting is a cluster of members of a particular committee or a common discipline or who work for their desirable cause in order to generate an output collectively. Meeting plays a key role in any institution, company, or any organization as it covers multiple aspects of functioning in a system and works towards producing an outcome. So now, we know the importance of the meeting which leads us to an important subject of matter which is preparation for meeting. It involves a series of steps and methods to properly and adequately prepare for meeting.
“The world is run by those who willing to sit until the end of the meetings.”-Hugh Park. Meetings can be of varying duration depending on the subject of discussion and the depth of detailing and it also depends on other factors. Members can find it boring, off topic engagement, and can sometimes lead to undesirable levels where no productivity is ensured. Hence, preparation for the meeting is highly necessary as it predefines the objective to achieve and the path which is to be followed to reach there. Basically, there are three different ways in which we can prepare for a meeting where in we can also use more than one way for a particular meeting. They are; Providing technical and documentation as well as distribution support, Defining the basic idea behind the meeting and make proposition and lastly is Figuring out the questions for the detailed and in-depth meeting as it makes the objective and the ways to achieve it clearer.
Primarily, I would focus on providing technical and documentation support as well coordinating with other members. Preparation includes communication with all the members in order to provide some basic information like, everyone must know the venue, time and duration of the meeting. An announcement must be sent out in order to inform the people on board. It includes various areas of importance like, basic information, agenda for meeting, brief description of previous meeting, distribution of documents necessary for meeting. This part also includes providing technical requirements for the meetings like setting up of the electrical equipment. This also includes some clerical support which is making sure that the meeting room has appropriate number of chairs and table, there are enough number of water bottles and temperature inside the boardroom is habitable and comfortable according to the number of people. Agenda is a vital document which describes the goal of the meeting and keeps everyone on the same page thus preventing loss of time.
Defining the basic idea and making proposition contains researching the position we hold in the meeting. It involves determining our role and imbibe some knowledge. Different methods like power point, charts or any other visuals could be used to present. While making the script, we should consider our audience because we must know to whom are we present therefore, level of preparation can be determined. Eventually, practicing the presentation with optimistic mind set would be of great help. Lastly, we must wake up early and prefer protein rich breakfast on the day of presentation which would help a lot, and prefer a simple and formal outfit.
To wrap up, we must have a list of some brief question to be asked at the last which would include the asking of details of what is discussed. During the meeting, prefer writing notes when another member is performing and be resourceful and taking down notes could help with that. To conclude, meeting preparation is very crucial as it governs the outcome of the meeting and avoids stalls and time wastes during the meeting. Meeting not only affects our professional life, but our personal life too. As it is rightly said by Nadia Scrieva that, “Each meeting occurs at a precise moment for which it was meant. Usually, when it will have the greatest impact on our lives.”