Steven Robbins here. Welcome to the Get It Done Guys quick and dirty tips to work less and do more.

I was watching Gauntlet 3 on MTV today. That's a reality TV show where people from other

reality TV shows all compete for prizes, obligatorily covered in mud, eating bugs, sleeping with snakes, all that

great kind of stuff. The veterans team chose their beds and roommates. They're on the same team,

and already they're slamming each other. Lock a bunch of people in a room, and they turn

vicious, backstabbing sneaky and manipulative. In business, we call that a meeting. Today, we'll make

your meetings less like the gauntlet and more like Thanksgiving dinner at Beaver Cleaver's

house. We'll pick up where Meeting Madness One left off. If you listen to Meeting Madness One,

by now you know why you're having meetings. Once you get there, though, you actually need to make

the darn

thing work. The quick and dirty tip is to assign three roles in each meeting. Facilator,

timekeeper, and scribe. The facilitator keeps the topic on track. Let's say you're discussing

whether to install a new drinking fountain. Naturally, you get diverted into discussions

of the impending worldwide water shortage. The facilitator gently brings you back on topic

by saying something like, we won't have a water shortage if we install a new drinking fountain,

so let's move on, shall we? The facilitator also tracks who's been talking and makes sure

everyone gets heard.

This counterbalances your local alpha male wannabes who dominate by being loud and talking a lot.

Sometimes they pound their chest.

They get their way because it's easier to give them their way than to ask them to stop with the whole chest thing.

A good facilitator might suggest,

Bob, we've heard and loved your stories

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