What do people really find challenging about leading meetings? Here are the top three questions that keep on cropping up followed by guidelines or simple ways to keep meetings under control and on track. Make your meetings work.

1. "Do you have any tips on encouraging people to be on time to meetings?"

The general rule is to start the meeting on time. This gives the message to people that you are serious about time and meeting management. If you start late, it penalizes the people who make an effort to be there at the designated time. Also, if someone only needs to attend for one particular segment of the meeting, let that person know approximately when that agenda item will be dealt with. Then that person does not have to attend the entire meeting, but just the part for his input.

Also, research suggests that setting a meeting time that is NOT on the hour or half hour is more likely to result in people arriving on time. For example, consider starting your meeting at 2:10 P.M. rather than 2:00 P.M. It certainly should get the attention of the participants.

2. "We hold regular staff meetings but often we spend a great deal of time on nothing at all. What can we do to be more productive?

Meetings that occur every week, or on some other regular basis, can be useful provided that there is a clear, important and continuing purpose for the meetings. However, this is often not the case. Staff meetings, for example, tend to occur simply because they are scheduled, and people scramble to find something to talk about.

If you are going to have regularly scheduled meetings, make sure first they are really necessary. Examine the agenda and ask: "Are each of these items essential or can it be handled outside the meeting? Or t format?" Second, have variety in your staff meetings. Occasionally bring in a speaker, have the meeting off-site, have a celebration, use a film clip or article to generate discussion. Put your creativity hat on and make the meetings interesting.

3. "No matter what we do, our meetings go on and on and on. What can we do to shorten our meeting?"

First of all, always have an agenda and stick to it. Each agenda item should have a time limit. If you are going over the set time for that item, the group has several choices:

• The item can be tabled to the next meeting.
• The group can decide that this item needs to be dealt with now and extends the time knowing that other items on the agenda may get short-changed or postponed.
• If an agenda item is multi-faceted, then. an option is to focus on one or two key aspects and table the remaining parts until the next meeting.

Second, it's important that the leader get the agreement of all the participants on certain ground rules. For example: A participant can 'hold the floor' on a single topic or item for a certain time limit that makes sense...two minutes, five minutes, ten minutes, and enforce it with a timer. Or a participant can speak on any given topic or item two times and that's it. This prevents talking the topic to death.

Third, take time at every meeting to evaluate what went well; what we could improve on; and how can we make our meetings more effective. Then it becomes everyone's responsibility for coming up with ideas to make the meetings work.

Marcia Zidle, the 'people smarts' coach, works with business leaders to quickly solve their people management headaches so they can concentrate on their #1 job ? to grow and increase profits. She offers free help through Leadership Briefing, a weekly e-newsletter with practical tips on leadership style, employee motivation, recruitment and retention and relationship management. Subscribe by going to http://leadershiphooks.com/ and get the bonus report "61 Leadership Time Savers and Life Savers". Marcia is the author of the What Really Works Handbooks ? resources for managers on the front line and the Power-by-the-Hour programs ? fast, convenient, real life, affordable courses for leadership and staff development. She is available for media interviews, conference presentations and panel discussions on the hottest issues affecting the workplace today. Contact Marcia at 800-971-7619.