How to Prepare and Run an Effective Meeting

When you ask someone what they do for a living, it’s not likely that they’ll answer with “Well, I sit in meetings all day.” But when you look at the average businessperson’s schedule, it’s clear that meetings make up a substantial part of many jobs—especially for those in leadership. So you see the importance of ab effective meeting.

Meetings are often dismissed as a waste of time, but meetings that have a clear purpose and are well run can actually make things go more smoothly and save time.

And what happens after those meetings is just as important.

Here is a short video that introduces how to run a meeting.

Dealing with meetings is a frequent topic in my work as a leadership consultant. I’ve devised a simple system to help my clients have the kind of meetings they need for the best results possible.

One of the biggest complaints I have from the leaders I coach is that they spend much too much time in meetings, leaving them with less time to do their jobs. But I’ve seen firsthand that a good system for meetings can limit distractions and keep everyone focused on what needs to get done so you get the results you want.

Effective meetings

Meeting management tends to be a set of skills often overlooked by leaders and managers.

The process used in a meeting depends on the kind of meeting you plan to have, e.g., staff meetings, planning meetings, problem-solving meetings, etc. However, there are certain basics that are common to various types of meetings. These basics are described below.

Selecting participants

The decision about who is to attend depends on what you want to accomplish in the meeting. This may seem too obvious to state, but it’s surprising how many meetings occur without the right people there.

Don’t depend on your own judgment about who should come. Ask several other people for their opinion as well.

Send a meeting notice, including the purpose of the meeting, where it will be held and when the list of participants and whom to contact if they have questions. Include a copy of the agenda.

Have someone designated to record important actions, assignments and due dates during the meeting. This person should ensure that this information is distributed to all participants shortly after the meeting.

Defining the agenda

Develop the agenda together with key participants in the meeting. Think of what overall outcome you want from the meeting and what activities need to occur to reach that outcome. The agenda should be organized so that these activities are conducted during the meeting. 

In the agenda, state the overall outcome that you want from the meeting. Design the agenda so that participants get involved early by having something for them to do right away and so they come on time. 

Ask participants if they’ll commit to the agenda. Don’t overly design meetings; be willing to adapt the meeting agenda if members are making progress in the planning process.

Think about how you label an event, so people come in with that mindset; it may pay to have a short dialogue around the label to develop a common mindset among attendees, particularly if they include representatives from various cultures.

Opening the meeting

  Always start on time; this respects those who showed up on time and reminds late-comers that the scheduling is serious.

Welcome attendees and thank them for their time.

Review the agenda at the beginning of each meeting, giving participants a chance to understand all proposed major topics, change them and accept them.

Note that a meeting recorder if used will take minutes and provide them back to each participant shortly after the meeting.

Establishing meeting ground rules

You don’t need to develop new ground rules each time you have a meeting, surely. However, it pays to have a few basic ground rules that can be used for most of your meetings. These ground rules cultivate the basic ingredients needed for a successful meeting.

Four powerful ground rules are: participate, get focus, maintain momentum and reach closure.

List your primary ground rules on the agenda.

If you have new attendees who are not used to your meetings, you might review each ground rule.

Keep the ground rules posted at all times.

 Time management 

One of the most difficult facilitation tasks is time management — time seems to run out before tasks are completed. Therefore, the biggest challenge is keeping momentum to keep the process moving.

You might ask attendees to help you keep track of the time.

If the planned time on the agenda is getting out of hand, present it to the group and ask for their input as to a resolution.

Checking the meeting process

 It’s amazing how often people will complain about a meeting being a complete waste of time — but they only say so after the meeting. Get their feedback during the meeting when you can improve the meeting process right away.

Evaluating a meeting only at the end of the meeting is usually too late to do anything about participants’ feedback.
 

Conduct 5-10 minutes “satisfaction checks”.

In a round-table approach, quickly have each participant indicate how they think the meeting is going.

Meeting closing

An important part ending a meeting. Here are the three things you need to make sure you do before adjourning any meeting:

Confirm key decisions. Make sure everyone is on the same page about any decisions that were made. It’s important that everyone comes away with a shared understanding because it will help focus everyone to move in the same direction.

Agree upon the next action steps. Have everyone agree upon the next steps and what actions will be taken. Make it clear that you expect each step to be fulfilled as agreed upon, and that any changes or unforeseen obstacles need to be discussed as soon as they emerge.

Create commitments. Be clear about the commitments and responsibilities that are made during the meeting so you can follow up by sending everyone involved a communication about the key objectives and action items.

The goal is for everyone to commit to accomplishing their tasks on schedule. Make sure to assign someone to check in at appropriate intervals to ensure that the commitments are being kept and, when necessary, re-evaluated in light of unexpected issues.

What do you do to get yourself and those around you in the right frame of reference for top performance?

Do you have any stories to share your attitude motivation? Any comments or questions to add below?

So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is completely up to you.

It’s up to you to keep improving your positive thinking and attitude. Lessons are all around you. In many situations, your competitor may be providing ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.

When things go wrong, what’s most important is your next step.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change.  We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.

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Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on  Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.