Shyamal Majumdar has lucidly enumerated the maladies of meetings at the workplace in his column, "When meetings become your only work" (October 9). It is true that much productive time is wasted on meetings.
On many occasions, as is clearly mentioned in the column, participants of a meeting are not correctly picked, with the result that those not concerned with the topics to be discussed, end up attending it and whiling away their time. Also, after a meeting has gone on for a while, some attendees tend to deviate from the topics under discussion, thereby taking up a lot of the time allotted for the meeting. After a meeting is over, if one were to analyse what transpired or what was achieved during it, the answer would be a blank.
In most cases, the person chairing a meeting does not conduct it according to the agenda decided prior to the meeting. If the agenda is worded properly and suitable time slots are mentioned against each item to be discussed, it would persuade participants to prepare in advance and make to-the-point presentations during the meeting.
BCU Nair Kuthiathode
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