Think about the last time you were invited to a business meeting. How did you feel? If you’re like a lot of people, your immediate thought might be that the meeting is going to be a waste of time, you may complain to your colleagues and expect to be bored.

Let’s get the bad news out of the way first: meetings are an essential part of communication in any business setting. The good news is, by learning some basic meeting skills we can have the biggest impact and stop the cycle of boring, pointless meetings. Whether you’re leading the meeting or you’re just a participant, you can impact whether the meeting is a success.

There are eight ways to make a meeting more effective (according to authors Kathleen Allen and Peter Economy).