Once a month, Sue, a district manager for a foodservice contract company, holds a meeting at a single location that is accessible to all the foodservice directors at her six hospital accounts. The meeting is supposed to start at 2:00 p.m. but Sue waits until the last manager arrives at 2:25.

The meeting starts as Sue thanks everyone for coming and asks how everyone is doing. Three managers start in at the same time with problems they want Sue's advice on, until one manages to outshout the others and gets Sue's attention. He complains about problems using the new computers in his hospitals. Once he's done, each manager takes a turn asking questions about concerns in his or her own operation. Their questions are all directed to Sue. By the time Sue has given each question her attention, it is almost 3:30. Since the meetings are only supposed to go until 4:00, Sue tries to share her news with everyone in 30 minutes.

After the meeting is over, Sue realizes that she forgot to mention something very important. She becomes angry with herself because she once again ran out of time and didn't write an agenda. The managers grumble and groan about wasted time as they run to their cars to return to their accounts.

Questions

1) What went well with this meeting?

2) What went poorly?

3)How could Sue make her management meetings more productive?

4) What could the managers do to make the meetings more productive?

5)Did Sue really not have enough time to write an agenda, or did she not make it a priority?