Every meeting has a goal

If you don't know what you are going to get out of a meeting, if you can't measure the benefit of the meeting, in a positive way, then you shouldn't have the meeting. This does not mean you won't or don't need a weekly staff meeting, it means that there is intent to your meeting, and a desired outcome. Meetings to hand out awards are good, meetings to hand out punishment, might happen once in a while - There is a reason for public hangings!

I have worked for individuals who measure the effectiveness of a meeting by how many people attended, how long the meeting lasted, or how many actions were assigned. What individual thinks that assigning work (actions) is a positive result?

A meeting shouldn't be such a waste so many peoples' time. In one of my jobs the average cost to the customer for the talented support was about $2 per MINUTE. If you have a two hour gathering (I'll avoid using the word meeting, because of how I define a meeting) of 40 people, well lets do the math $2 x 120 min = $240 x 40 people = $9,600. Using a most simplistic approach, the results of that meeting should be worth $9,600. If all you do at this meeting, is assign actions items to the attendees, then you have a multitude of problems. 1) For $2 a minute those folks should know what they are doing and you shouldn't need to tell them; 2) You have wasted two hours of their time, two hours that they could have been doing their jobs; 3) You have wasted two hours of your time, time you could have spent hiring competent people.

If you want to be effective, you need to decide for each an every meeting (inlcuding a single meeting between two people) what is your desired outcome. You should have a measurable outcome. Early on in your development as a leader you should write down your goals before the meeting and review them after the meeting, until it becomes second nature. Do you have a weekly staff meeting? Is it effective? Does something get accomplished as a result of each meeting? Is your meeting short enough? Short Enough? Don't I mean long enough? No, I mean short. I learned that no single topic during the staff meeting should last longer that 3 minutes. If it takes longer than 3 minutes, then there needs to be a separate meeting to address the issue. At the 3 or maybe 5 minute point, everyone in your staff meeting has been exposed to the issue, and all the discussion is now moving in multiple directions and those members of the staff who just have to say something will add, but won't add value. Those that don't care are tuning out. You are losing control of your meeting and your agenda/goals. Table the issue and have someone organize the right people, place and time. As a matter of practice I try to keep all my meetings to 40 min or less. I schedule an hour, I start on time and I work to finish early. So what do I want from my staff meeting? I don't want a single topic to dominate the meeting. I want everyone to have a chance to say what has been important to them in the previous week, what's important to them this week, what is important next week, what is there Number 1 priority, where do they need help, and I probably have some specific topic that might need addressing. With this simple approach you will get a very clear picture on whether or not your staff is headed in the correct direction, if your team goals are being realized, and when. If the most important item on you goals, isn't mentioned, then you have not effectively communicated with your team.

What do you really want?

General Dynamics is actually several companies traveling in a general direction with little or nothing in common. I'm actually employed by General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems. For the past several years I have been a GDAIS employee working as a subcontractor to GDIT (General Dynamics Information Technology) who was working as a subcontractor to Northrup Grumman who was working for a US government organization. Well, GDIT and GDAIS were arguing amongst themselves, end result is that GDAIS is no longer a subcontractor to GDIT. Simultaneously, I'm no longer helping a US government organization. I'm "sitting on the bench". I'm on overhead. This is not necessarily a good place to be in these economic times. I spend my days looking for internal job opportunities and working on proposals for new work. I'm not worried, yet. Next year I'll start to worry.

In the mean time I'm doing one of my volunteer things. Several employees of GDAIS support social organizations. We do this by reviewing resumes for people who are looking for jobs. I usually enjoy resume reviews. More often than not, I believe I can add some value to the applicants efforts.

My biggest complaint, when looking at a resume is the objective statement. I would like to see an objective statement, but the statement I see needs to have substance. "I would like a job in a technology company that applies by skills and talents." Bullshit. If this is the verbose piffle you are going to write, don't send me an objective statement. If you send your resume to GDAIS and your talent and skills are driveway repairs, who are we kidding. Your objective statement doesn't need to say you want a job. I figured that part out on my own. What do you really want? Do you want to be as a system administrator in a position that provides potential for future management or leadership? Do you want to be an illustrator? Do you want to pave driveways? If you are an expert at driveway repairs, and you have great references, there is a chance I can find a job for you at GDAIS, but it won't be repairing driveways. So, you better have an idea about what you want to do, and put it in the objective statement. You can start by reviewing the job sites of companies and learn their lingo. GDAIS has facilities people. They get folks to repair driveways, drywall, move desks, etc. If your resume indicates you can work on your own at any task with minimal supervision, then I might get you into this job.

How many resumes do you have? I have one resume that I hand out at the local job fairs. It is a grocery list of positions I've held, success stories by $$ value, as well as training and specialized skills. It gets responses. When I see a specific job I want, I rewrite the resume and "tune" it to the job. If is is a job in Defense, then I emphasize my military background. If it is a job in Intelligence, I emphasis my intelligence experience. I also emphasis different parts if the job is technical versus managerial. Right now, I have 8 different resumes that I have submitted. I only expect the resume to get my foot in the door. I have to sell me.

Selling me involves researching jobs before I go interview. I do an search on similar job openings and look for key trends. I search openings in other companies to find key information. I call friends and ask them if they know what the job is, what happened to the last person, and how is the company doing with regards to their customer? Even in D.C. the community of my skill holders is relatively small. There is information to be had, if you look for it.

OK. That's my 2 cents for today. I need to go search the GD website for openings. I don't have the desire to rant about HR today, maybe some other time.