According to the Harvard Business Review, "A very real constraint on the financial performance of most companies is top management’s capacity to reach good decisions quickly." Michael Mankins walks us through why quick decision making can save people, time, effort, and clear your meeting calendar to a create more reasonable schedule.

Do any of these statements ring true for some of your meetings:

"Strategic conversations tend to be vague and unstructured."

"Meetings I attend are not designed to reach effective decisions quickly."

"I often have to schedule a follow-up meeting I was not intending to host."

Michael's findings show that, "delayed or distorted strategic decisions lead to overlooked waste and high costs, hastily conceived and harmful cost reductions, missed new product and business development opportunities, and poor long-term investments." He points to meetings that fail to reach tangible decisions as the leading cause for these shortfalls.

Here is how to turn your ship around:

1. Make decisions, cut down on discussions. There are some decisions that just don't warrant a group discussion. Determine where discussion stops and decisions are made and stick to it.
2. Take items off your agenda.  Are any of the items on your agenda decisions that you can make right now? If so, make the call and take that item off the agenda. 
3. Get issues off the agenda as quickly as possible. Do you need a group decision on an item in your agenda? Note in your agenda that you are holding a vote, not a discussion. That will turn a 25 minutes agenda item into a 5 minute one.  
4. Put real choices on the table. Often meetings can turn lengthy fast when discussions don't have clear boundaries. Instead of asking "What direction should we go in?" ask, "should we go in Direction A or Direction B?"
5. Make decisions stick. When a decision is made, share it with every person involved in the process of taking the next steps. Be clear, be concise, and be resolute.