Meetings Matter: 8 Powerful Strategies for Remarkable Conversations

Meetings have become a pain point for millions. Many see them as useless sessions that take time away from meaningful tasks. But one consultant with more than 30 years of experience has a different perspective--that meetings matter and can be mastered.

In his new book, Meetings Matter, Paul Axtell emphasizes the importance of meetings, and he redesigns them using the vital foundation of conversation.

With real-life examples and actionable advice, he shows you how to design meetings for results, lead them to achieve agendas that move projects forward, and even allow time to build the relationships that make working together in a remarkable way possible.

This book will revolutionize the meeting--moving it from that dreaded obligation to the most powerful way to get things done in business and in life.

Meetings are at the heart of effective organizations. Each meeting is an opportunity to clarify issues, set direction, sharpen focus, create alignment, and move ambitions forward. We have to change the way we think about meetings--the way we design and lead them and, most importantly, how we manage what happens between meetings.

Axtell offers eight powerful strategies for fixing our meeting problems, and within each strategy, he provides concrete advice you can put into action immediately--such as limiting participants, being vigilant about what gets on the agenda, designing the conversation for each agenda item, and managing the experience for everyone in the room so people leave feeling heard and appreciated.

Further, he explains how meetings can be your primary way to create and maintain your network of relationships.

"We go to meetings. A lot of them," writes Axtell. "So let's put creating and building relationships in front of us as one of the desired outcomes. What would you do differently if you looked at each meeting as an opportunity to add to your network?"

Wise and well considered, Meetings Matter is a first-class primer not only on remarkable productivity, but on inspiring us to use meetings to build better relationships.

Paul Axtell provides consulting and personal effectiveness training to a wide variety of clients, from Fortune 500 companies and universities to nonprofit organizations and government agencies. A large focus of his work is how to run effective and productive meetings-to turn them from dreaded calendar items into vital, productive sessions with measurable results. Paul has an engineering degree from South Dakota School of Mines and an MBA from Washington University in St. Louis. He has fifteen years of experience in manufacturing, engineering, and management. For the last twenty years, Paul's focus has been devoted to designing and leading programs that enhance individual and group performance within large organizations. He is the author of three books--the award-winning Meetings Matter: 8 Powerful Strategies for Remarkable Conversations; Being Remarkable; and Ten Powerful Things to Say to Your Kids: Creating the Relationship You Want with the Most Important People in Your Life, which applies the concepts of his work to the special relationships between parents and children of all ages. Named Best Parenting Book of 2012, it has been translated into Korean, Vietnamese, Chinese, Arabic, French, and Spanish. In addition to interacting with kids, he loves playing golf, creating bonsai trees, fly-fishing, and reading mysteries. Paul lives with his wife, Cindy, in Minneapolis.