Business Solutions for your Bottom Line

Always create an agenda to keep your meeting on point. Distribute it no later than the day before so attendees can come prepared. It’s important to be respectful of people’s time by defining the start and end time. Also, make sure you have the decision-makers in attendance. Throughout the meeting, stay on point and stick to the agenda. Avoid meeting disruptors by asking attendees to put away their mobile phones. Lastly, be sure to recap the meeting within 24 hours and detail the decisions and action items to move your initiatives forward.

Essentia Health uses an efficient and effective tactic called the huddle. A huddle is regularly dedicated daily or weekly time with those who work closely together to discuss changes or improvement in their daily work. Huddles are routine, include many stakeholders, and last no more than 15 minutes. Most importantly, huddles occur where work is being done, and not in a meeting room. The goal of the huddle is to take the pulse of activities happening that day or the coming week. It provides a time for the whole team to be “in the know” and promotes transparency.

As professionals, meetings may feel like necessary evils. It is important that proper organization takes place prior to the meeting. I recommend clearly identifying the goals you wish to achieve. This will help you structure a meaningful and detailed agenda to send to attendees in advance. This allows attendees time to prepare and understand expectations before the meeting even begins. Sticking to the agenda, however, is sometimes the most challenging aspect. Be sure to reference the agenda often, table items that aren’t resolved in the allotted time, and assign follow-up actions for outstanding issues.

2016 Tax Data

6,925,658 944,930

7,779,688 898,253

January Crude Oil First Purchase Price

Residential Natural Gas Prices

DATA PROVIDED BY DAVID FLYNN , CHAIR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH DAKOTA DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS. REACH HIM AT DAVID.FLYNN@BUSINESS.UND.EDU