What-not-to-do before a meeting

There are a ton of things you should do before a meeting. But there are few things, that we tend to miss before a meeting which in-turn may lead to bad impression. Risking in meetings might reflect badly on the profile of your organization or on your personal image and here are few not-to-do points before a meeting.

Miss the invite:

Missing on the calendar invite or misreading the invite might be one of the biggest mistakes you could do before going to a meeting. The reason being, the calendar invite will have timings, location and other details that you wouldn’t want to miss. Asking one too many questions on information that is already provided in the invite is another way to showcase your dumbness. Keep track of all your invites to avoid any post-guilt trips. 

No plan in place:

Not contacting the point of contact may lead to some problems as well. There might be some security clearance that needs to be done before stepping in, or the word of the person you are meeting to the security or a person to escort you into the building are some factors that may delay your meeting. Ensure that you reach ahead of your meeting time and you convey your arrival time to the contact person earlier in-order to finish all the clearance process soon. 

The wrong agenda:

Missing out on the agenda and walking to a meeting with a completely wrong agenda is a bad fall. Agendas give a gist of what the meeting is going to be about. Imagine going to a blockchain discussion meeting with the notes for a completely mismatched point. That’s why I insist on going through the agenda of the meeting well enough and a pre-study of the client and the point of discussion will help in a big way.

Multiple meetings and their timings: 

The world is busy, and trying to finish up more than one meeting is understandable. But having neck to neck meetings is a bad move. Two meetings should be scheduled at least one hour apart. Missing a meeting or postponing a meeting because you couldn’t turn up at the right time is not a good impression, even if the reason was that you got caught up in another meeting. One, they may have their day planned accordingly and this delay will affect their productivity; two, you will miss on your schedule and the impression you leave for not being punctual can have its own side effects.

The wrong attendees:

Taking one too many people with you for the meeting or missing out on the core person of the meeting is another drawback. When you take too many people to a meeting, there is a loss in time, productivity and money. They may feel out of place and might not have much to contribute. Similarly, you can’t lead all the talks the customer wants to have. The presence of a core member might be required and not take them to the meeting will prolong the process. 

Up next