Lead and Control

We discussed earlier the importance of taking any chance you can to lead. Meetings represent that chance. You should always volunteer to lead a meeting. Once you do so, however, you must take specific measures to control the content of the meeting. Virtually all of the top professionals I interviewed for this book—from top aerospace executive Tom Gunn to Marriott's Bill Shaw—use written agendas. Many provide that agenda before the meeting and a sizeable percentage put names next to each topic to tell the attendees who is expected to speak on which topic. That focuses the meetings and reduces digressions. Each person is so concerned about his or her designated topic that he or she is less likely to opine meaninglessly on some irrelevant subject.

In addition, while common courtesy is essential in a meeting, you cannot hesitate to cut off someone who is droning on too long or who is addressing a subject that will not advance the purpose of the meeting, according to Hendrik Verfaillie, former CEO of Monsanto. A sizeable percentage of senior executives reserve five minutes or so at the end of the meeting for "other issues." That five minutes gives the leader of the meeting a chance to defer marginally relevant topics to the end of the meeting.