Before Agreeing to a Meeting Ask These Questions

 

What do you ask before agreeing to a meeting?

Inviting or being invited to meetings is a pretty trivial thing as a part of our professional lives. But meetings can waste valuable time in a startup or new venture.

Have you ever been to a meeting where you felt you were not needed, or the meeting did not achieve anything, or everything just proved to be a waste of time or opportunity? Here are some questions you should ask before agreeing to a meeting.

Questions to ask

The first question you need to ask is the agenda of the meeting. A meeting is not a proper meeting if it does not have a fixed agenda. An agenda mainly consists of the description of how the meeting will go ahead. If the agenda has not been fixed beforehand, the meeting will most likely be a waste of time.

Secondly, before agreeing to a meeting, you need to determine what the meeting is intended to achieve. The person asking you to attend the meeting must have a goal in mind which he or she wants to accomplish through the meeting. It is your right to know that goal, and you must do so if you don’t fancy going to useless meetings. Always avoid meetings where they call you to “discuss some important topics”.

And lastly, before agreeing to a meeting, you must know what role you will play in the meeting. If the person has called you for the meeting, then you must know why he or she chose to do so. You need to be able to contribute to the meeting. Otherwise, it is pointless. If it is a superficial role that you are to play, then you might start considering your options.

Conclusion

That is how you can avoid attending useless and boring meetings that achieve nothing. Over time, you will gain more experience, and you will be able to judge for yourself the kind of meetings that are good and the ones that are not.

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One Response to Before Agreeing to a Meeting Ask These Questions

  1. I made this mistake often. Going to meetings with no central purpose or agenda as you specifically stated. Due to this, I’ve attended many useless meetings.

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