Want to hold more effective meetings? Your coworkers don’t have to have access to a basket of artisan blueberry scones to tap into their creativity. And they don’t have to stand instead of sit to keep them on track. If you’re holding a meeting, you already have all the tools you need to run an effective, efficient gathering.

Here are seven suggestions to improve meetings at your workplace:

Have a plan: If you’ve called the meeting, create an agenda and send it out beforehand. Too ambitious for you? Then at least have a list with you when the meeting begins, whether it’s printed and handed out to your peers or written on your laptop or legal pad. Meandering through a meeting is the surest way to lose your audience, so sketch out a plan and try to stick to it.

Don’t meet when you don’t have to: This may be the Cardinal Rule of meetings: If the content of your meeting can be summed up in an email to your staff or co-workers, then you don’t need to have a meeting. It’s as simple as that. Value your co-workers time as much as you value your own. If you want people to participate in your meetings, only hold them when you have a subject that is worthy of their participation.

Timing is everything: No one likes the meetings that start or end the workday. If you expect people to show up at 8:30 in the morning to hear about your plans to take over the world, you might find an audience with drooping eyelids and drifting attention spans. Give people some time to start their workday at their desks. Let them check their email, complain about their spouses, down a couple cups of coffee and actually begin some work before heading to the conference room. And that 4:30 p.m. meeting? Really?

Know your audience: It’s possible for each subgroup in a business to have its own language and culture. Some divisions thrive on corporate-speak and 12-hour workdays while others eschew both. If you’re training a group from the other side of the building, don’t use the same approach that you would use with people from your own division.

Limit the small talk: There are only so many stories about that all-inclusive vacay that Jenny from marketing took last year, right? And surely, Chuck from IT eventually will run out of tales about his nine-year-old’s exploits on the park district baseball diamond. Guess again. Nothing against some casual pre-meeting conversation but when you’re asking people to set aside their work for an hour to discuss some new corporate goals, get right to the task at hand. Too much pre-meeting chit-chat can set you off course for several minutes or longer, compromising your agenda and your goals.

Let ’em go: All those yawns that seem to be epidemic around the table? That’s on you. You don’t need to break out a pair of cymbals but you do need to keep your message focused and concise. And when you start losing your audience, it’s OK to end the meeting.

Get people involved: Give people something to do. Switch up who runs the meetings, who does real-time research on any issues, who writes on the whiteboard and who cuts off that guy from sales who always asks “one last question” just as everyone is getting ready to leave. Even rotating simple tasks can keep people on their toes for a few more minutes than usual. /Tribune News Service