By Russell S. Powell

As public-relations officers, we always seem to be going to meetings. Our days are often a blur of staff meetings and teleconferences, board sessions and department get-togethers, all-college gatherings and breakfast chats. We schedule meetings, present at meetings, and chair meetings, ad nauseam.

Yet for all those meetings we attend—and all the complaining we do about them—many of us keep repeating the same mistakes and perpetuating an unsatisfying, unproductive cycle.

Too often, it seems, we turn to meetings as the dull, reflexive, institutional strategy for tackling any issue or problem. Meetings give the appearance, if not always the reality, of something getting done. As a result, on some campuses there are times when it seems as if all people do is shuffle from one meeting to the next, yet still feel as if they haven't accomplished anything at the end of the day.

But there is such a thing as a good meeting, well run. We can't make sound decisions that affect our institutions without consulting the people directly affected. In public relations, we need to get others invested in our work, to make them see that it's in their best interest to help carry out our recommendations. And meetings are often the best way to do that.

Neglecting to meet with key players on an issue causes its own problems. The failure of Web-site developers to fully consider the needs of editors, for example, has compromised the utility of some otherwise elegant technical advances. The decision-making process may be slow and messy at times, but the development of many of our best, most durable ideas requires the consultation and consideration of many.

Perhaps the best reason to schedule a meeting is that there still is no substitute for face-to-face contact. Just because technological options are available to us does not always make them the best solution at hand. The dynamics of a live debate, the nuances in tone of a colleague's comment or criticism, the subtle messages imparted by a look or a gesture simply cannot be replicated on the telephone or in cyberspace. Technology should be employed only in the service of building a stronger community, not isolating people in their cubicles.

With all of those good reasons to meet, where does it all go wrong? Here are some dos and don'ts to improve your investment on time spent in a room conversing with your colleagues. First the dos:

Plan ahead. Few things are more counterproductive than passing out important documents during a meeting. It stops discussion in its tracks, or else the meeting goes on without people's full attention as they begin poring over the paperwork. If a document is important enough for a group to discuss its contents, it should be distributed well in advance—at least a week, ideally—so that people can read it and come to the meeting prepared.

Prepare an agenda. If you want to accomplish anything of substance in the short time it takes to meet, make the reasons for getting together clear—again, in advance. If you can't come up with a specific goal, objective, or activity, you should rethink your decision to meet. Especially with regular gatherings like weekly staff meetings, the more organized you are, the more the people in attendance will appreciate it, and the more everyone will benefit.

Limit your agenda. A classic mistake that causes many meetings to implode is the tendency to include too much. When good discussions are short-circuited because the meeting's leader wants to stick to the agenda, or when half the items are never discussed for lack of time, people leave feeling irritated. Be realistic about the amount of time it will take to raise and discuss a topic. It is hard to do justice to more than two or three substantive ideas, at most, in a one-hour meeting.

Encourage participation. The "book report"-style meeting can be deadly. Find ways to get everyone to contribute, either by calling on them or going around the room. Ask follow-up questions if people's first responses are unclear or lapse into cliché. Cultivating a livelier, more interactive meeting style can take time if people aren't used to it. Yet when people feel that their contributions are valued, their attendance and participation will rise.

Serve light refreshments. I'm skeptical of working-lunch meetings, as people's attention is invariably divided between the work at hand and the food on their plates. The meeting is ineffectual, and bad for digestion. You can listen to a report, perhaps, if you can hear it above the munching—your own or the person's next to you (who happens to be fond of celery and carrot sticks). But too much food works at cross-purposes with the meeting's agenda. Some drinks or light snacks, on the other hand, can encourage attendance and make the activity more civilized and, well, pleasant. A little food can go a long way toward setting a communal tone of good will. Just don't overdo it.

Maintain focus. You may have brought in soft drinks and brownies, sent out an agenda and supporting documents well in advance, and still have your meeting elicit glazed stares or groans if you can't keep the discussion on course once everyone is gathered. Left to their own devices, people can start going off on tangents that have nothing to do with your agenda. Moderating a meeting effectively is an art form, and one of its key elements is keeping everyone in the room focused on the task at hand. That requires intervention: Interrupting a colleague's impassioned description of the old days (repeated for the umpteenth time) is necessary if you want to keep the meeting on time and focused on the essential, if more prosaic, task of balancing the departmental budget.

Only call meetings when necessary. Don't meet for the sake of meeting, because you think it "builds community" or because it makes you feel as if things are actually getting done. This is a waste of people's time, and undermines the value of essential meetings. Be thoughtful about who really needs to attend, and try not to clutter up everyone's schedule with meetings that could be avoided.

At a meeting's end, if it is clear that you need to convene again, pick a date and time with everyone right there in the room. If people think the extra meeting is superfluous or unclear on its purpose, they can raise their objections for all to hear.

Now let's turn to the meeting don'ts. When it's your turn to attend a meeting, rather than convene one, there are things you can do to reduce your frustration with unproductive time and contribute to the positive culture you seek:

Don't complain. The meeting may seem unnecessary, in your humble opinion, or your presence may not seem required. The truth is, you would rather not attend because the person running the meeting never sticks to the agenda, and people go on and on about things that are of no interest to you. You are stuck at a meeting instead of back at your desk where you could be working on that magazine article due at the end of the week, writing a press release, or making phone calls.

"I might be able to get something done," you complain loudly to your colleagues, "if I didn't have to attend all these meetings!"

Wait a minute. Someone is actually paying you a salary to sit in a room and talk with people with whom you have shared interests—making the college function more smoothly, for example. And you are complaining?

If a meeting is run well and you contribute, it requires quality thinking on your part. If the meeting is run poorly and you don't participate, your attendance requires nothing more than the patience to sit comfortably in a warm room (you might even get a brownie!). Either way, complaints about how much you are "missing work" ring hollow.

Show up on time. If you want to be treated with respect and don't want to feel as if your time is being wasted, then don't waste other people's time by arriving late. Sixty minutes is not a long time to devote to an agenda of substance. Don't let your tardiness be responsible for whittling it down further.

Be constructive. When your boss or convener opens the door for your participation, be ready to walk through it. The more you take advantage of your opportunities and contribute positively to the discussion, the more you will be taken seriously.

On campuses where a negative culture around meetings has taken hold, you may have to take a risk and change your habits.

Instead of sitting in silence for an hour, finalizing your grocery list, doodling in the margins of your legal pad, and thinking up wry comments for later airing, if you want to change the culture, you have to model the behavior you desire. That means coming to meetings prepared, ready to present your opinions and listen to others.

Edit yourself. While it is important to speak up, don't go on so long that the chair has to cut you off. Be attentive to the reactions to what you are saying from the other people in the room. Be brief. Less is more.

Bring your calendar. This is such a basic step but, without it, the people in attendance are condemned to a mind-numbing succession of e-mail messages or telephone calls trying to nail down a date and time for the next meeting when it could have been resolved in minutes with everyone in the room reviewing their calendars.

Ill-focused and superfluous meetings can be maddening, wasting our time and interrupting the flow of our day. But a good meeting can make things happen. And it's up to all of us to make sure the good meetings outnumber the bad.

Russell S. Powell is a public-relations officer at Elms College, in Chicopee, Mass. He previously worked as director of public relations at Hampshire College and at Greenfield Community College, and as a consultant. He writes for On Message, our column on career issues in academic public relations. If you would like to write for the column, send your ideas to careers@chronicle.com.