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.
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.