I’m traveling next week to New York and California to do trainings for our Collegewise counselors. They’ll be out of their offices for two days and traveling to attend. Arun and Paul will be joining, as well as several guest stars from The Princeton Review. I’ve spent the last week thinking about what we need to discuss, planning the agenda, and preparing my materials. Nobody wants to get together just to say we met or to watch me read bullet points from a PowerPoint presentation. The time and money we’re all spending raises the stakes. This training needs to be well worth it.
What if this were how we all approached every meeting?
How would you run your next Spanish Club meeting if people were flying 2000 miles to attend?
How would you run your next faculty meeting if it were costing everyone $500 just to sit in the room?
How would you run your next retreat, brainstorming session, or conference call if you were asking people to be away from their families and put off all their responsibilities for a day just to be there?
You’d probably ask yourself whether or not the meeting was really necessary. And if the answer were, “Yes,” you’d also go to great lengths to makes sure that meeting delivered whatever it was your group needed.