Meetings, meetings, meetings… They’re everywhere, no matter what company you work for. You have to attend them, even though they’re so boring you could spend your time doing something way more interesting. In addition, if you are the person who is in charge of organizing a meeting, you’re facing quite a challenge.
Productive Meetings
Company’s chief, CEO, manager, however you are, you may know the problem of organizing meetings. And meetings’ subjects can vary, depending on the problems and issues you need to discuss with your team. Whatever is the case, organizing a good, productive meeting may not be as easy as it seems.
A productive meeting requires taking up certain actions, not simply telling everyone to come to the meeting room and start talking about “what we could talk about at today’s meeting?”
Meetings can be tough, both for the boss and for the team. But it’s possible to make them productive and engaging. Follow these 10 simple but effective ways of improving your meetings and make them more interesting and more organized.
#1 Be prepared
Before you actually begin any meeting, you should be fully prepared. Beginning from the meeting’s topic to the smallest details, such as your team’s attendance.
Gather all the data and information needed for discussing particular topics. You may want to consider elements such as:
- tasks and projects’ progress,
- reports on team’s activity,
- employee’s attendance,
- main goals to achieve during the past week,
- stakeholders’ remarks and interest in projects.
#2 Engage your team
Encourage your team to actively participate in the session. A good meeting requires the engagement of both sides, the speaker and the attendees.
After all, it’s all about discussing the problems and trying to find solutions together.
#3 Use an agenda
Using a meeting note app will help you stay organized and communicate effectively with your team.
Make a plan according to which you will hold the meeting. Thanks to this step you will be able to cover all the important things and nothing will escape your notice.
It’s also advisable to distribute the agenda with the full list of names who is to cover which topic to avoid confusion.
#4 Keep it short
Don’t make meetings long. Only if necessary. Try to include all the most important information. Otherwise, your employees will be bored to death and you may gain the opposite outcome than you initially expected.
#5 Listen
Don’t just talk, learn to be a good listener. The meeting will never be productive if you won’t consider your employee’s remarks or problems they may be dealing with. In fact, their problems sometimes can be crucial to the project and may result in its delay or even failure.
The meeting shouldn’t be only about you speaking, but also about responding to employees’ needs.
#6 Choose the right day
We all know that Monday is the worst day for a meeting. The beginning of the week after a lazy weekend is a horror show for everyone, including you.
Meetings are important, of course, but let your people sink deeper into their work so that they can give 100% of their potential. Some people claim that Wednesday is the best day for a meeting. How about Thursday? It’s not the middle of the week and people don’t feel too stressed and overwhelmed with work. It’s not also the beginning of the weekend – Friday – so they are still focused.
#7 Use tools for planning
People tend to forget to attend meetings. That’s why it is good to make use of tools such as Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook, or Doodle. That way everyone will always remember about upcoming dates of appointments.
#8 Stand up
When you stand up while talking, people pay more attention to your words. It also gives them the sense that you’re the one who’s in charge here. It is more likely they will listen to you and remember what was said during the meeting.
#9 Assign responsibility
“The majority of meetings should be discussions that lead to decisions.” – Patrick Lencioni
One of the main goals of a good meeting is to assign people the task they should be doing. It’s not only about discussing how’s the company doing and what’s the progress but also who is responsible for what. It’s important not to forget it.
#10 Summarize the main point
When the meeting is over, summarize the most important aspect which you discussed. It can be either a project, the main goal for the next week, or general performance of the company. When everyone leaves the room with the main idea, they are more likely to focus better on their work.
Enjoy your next, now productive meeting and let us know how it went!