It would serve employees and employers well if meetings are not overrated in their importance because over the long haul, this translates to lower productivity. If a person is always in a meeting, when are they going to get any work done? For the employees, it means another late night.

If you are called for a meeting, you can save yourself some time if you can establish its necessity. Question the need to meet given the sophisticated environment that we work in, getting consensus usually can be achieved through other means like emails.

Conference calls can be a productive way to conduct a meeting as this saves huge amount of time and money travelling to and from the meeting venue. After all, its is not necessary that everyone be present at a particular location to have consensus.

If you have to be in a meeting, how do you manage an effective meeting so that it achieves its purpose, and in keeping within a certain time frame, and without being over bearing? If you are calling for the meeting, the key to a successful and productive meeting is to take control of the situation.

Here are some tips to conduct meetings effectively:

* Prepare an agenda with estimated overall timing and circulate it to the attendees before the meeting.

* Send a note to remind them to prepare questions or issues ahead of time.

* Call people a day before the meeting to confirm the timing and location. This reduces lateness and excuses.

* Set the tone about keeping the meeting to the point, being objective and avoid any politics. This also serves as a reminder that everyone's time shall honoured.

* If there are many issues, itemize the items and break down the timing for each issue, this ensures each issue does not over run.

* Decide on who will be the time keeper and be taking down the notes. This ensures no one will be slighted when the time keeper announced time-out and there will be no confusion as to who is the referee.

* Control the time by controlling the situation, if an issue gets dragged into another unrelated area, politely point it back to the central issue.

* If there are issues that need to be further resolved, you can suggest a separate meeting with or between those involved only.

* Remind them to switch off their handphones or laptops. Very often people treat phone calls like a life threatening issue.

* Always be mindful of time, be firm but polite. Stay on target.

* If the meeting is a presentation that you are doing, keep check of your own timing. At the beginning you can request that questions be kept to the end of the presentation.

* Before the meeting or presentation, anticipate questions and prepare the answers ahead.

A productive meeting brings about a deeper level of satisfaction. People will appreciate that their time is respected and in return, you get the respect or consensus if you are able to demonstrate control and efficiency.