Meetings of the mind: too many companies have ineffective meetings. These tips will revolutionize your meetings and make them more productive.(MAKING NEWS)

Meetings at Richard's Total Backyard Solutions often are positive, fun and always effective.

"We've done skits during meetings to help depict the right and wrong ways to deal with customers. We always start on time and end on a positive note," explained J.R. Richard, CEO of the Houston pool-building firm.

Richard's company is a rarity. More often than not, company and department meetings are inefficient, disorderly and ineffective. Every day, approximately 11 million meetings are held in the United States. That means roughly 37 percent of employee time is spent in meetings, according to the National Statistics Council. What's more, researchers have found that nearly all meeting attendees (91 percent) admit to daydreaming during meetings, while more than one-third (39 percent) have dozed off.

Yet meetings are a necessary evil, especially in the pool and spa industry. Managers and supervisors must be informed of project statuses and pending problems. But having a great meeting is easier than it seems, said Michael Wilkinson, managing director of Leadership Strategies Inc., a consulting firm in Atlanta.

"We use the term 'masterful meeting' to describe a meeting that is well-prepared, well-executed and results-oriented, with a timely start, a decisive close and a clear follow-up plan," said Wilkinson, who also is author of The Secrets to Masterful Meetings: Igniting a Meetings Revolution (Leadership Strategies Publishing, 2005). "Every meeting should have the three P's: a clearly stated purpose, product and process, or agenda."

To understand what constitutes a good meeting, you must first recognize the ...