Have you ever been sitting in a meeting and been thinking of how it could be more efficient if an agenda had been created?  I am certainly one for structured meetings when needed.  But even worse than unstructured meetings with one-sided goals are meetings that could have been e-mails.  I read yesterday in HBR that meetings cost companies at least hundreds of thousands of dollars annually (millions in some cases).  If you could cut down on this, why wouldn’t you?

In short, don’t be one of those leaders who wastes your team’s time.  And, if you’re not the one calling the shots, how about suggesting a new office/company policy: the individual who calls the meeting is responsible for creating an agenda and sending it out at least 24 hours in advance.

Make professional development a priority.