Attending meetings is an inevitable part of our professional lives. I bet that most of us have left meetings feeling drained, confused and uncertain of what to do.
David Wethey in his book, ‘Decide. Better ways of making better decisions’, argues that meetings have a purpose: to decide things, and thus, he puts forward a few suggested hygiene factors.
If you are a CEO or someone in charge of holding meetings you may consider the following hygiene questions.

1) What makes a meeting counterproductive?
2) What is the goal for the meeting? How can you communicate it in advance?
3) What should be the length of the meeting? Is that long enough, or is it too long?
4) What’s on the agenda? Can you (or we) get through all those items in the time given? If you can’t which items shall you leave out?
5) Who has to be there? (remember that less tends to be more).
6) How can you make sure that everyone will make a contribution?
7) How could you create a win- win culture?
8) How could you make sure that everyone needs to know what they need to know?
9) Who is responsible for summarizing what has been achieved, writing up the conclusions/ decisions?
10) In case of a decision making, how could you assess risks, rewards- maximum upside consistent with minimizing downside?
11) When you reach an agreement, what will be the next action step?
If the meeting doesn’t prompt the attendees to take action, do you need the meeting?