How to Have a More Productive Business Meeting

These days every organization seems riddled with business meetings.  Morning meetings.  Weekly meetings.  Team Meetings.  Project Meetings.  Board Meeting.  Meetings are often dreaded by those who run and attend them because they tend to waste time instead of being productive and effective.  In fact, most employees regularly dread them.  Often, they’re far too lengthy and cause more problems than solutions.  Many seem unnecessary and like things aren’t really accomplished and many end up leaving asking themselves the questions: “What was the point of that meeting?  How did that help me?”  Meetings often miss the mark.  Instead of being a cauldron lighting the fires of creative innovation where productivity and new ideas are formed, they tend to drain energy and feel endless.  But that doesn’t have to be the case at all.  In fact, a meeting can provide many benefits if it’s well-run and has clearly defined objectives.  Productive, valuable and engaging meetings require clear goals, open dialogue and a strong leader to ensure things run smoothly and efficiently.  Here are some tips for having a more productive business meeting.

First off, make every meeting matters or don’t meet at all.  You must decide in advance if a meeting is truly needed for the topic you want to discuss.  Invite only the necessary people.  Don’t waste others’ time and additionally, there may be no point to certain individuals being there because they won’t add value and may wind up distracting from the meeting’s goals and objectives.  Face-to-face time is only important when it matters; not because it’s routine or because you feel like you must meet regularly simply because it’s status-quo.  If you don’t need in-person feedback, try the old-fashioned method of mass emails.

Define your goals for every meeting and distribute an agenda in advance so attendees know what the meeting will entail and how they are expected to participate and what they will learn.  Create a structure for your meeting.  Simply by stating the ideal result, this often inspires participants and makes meetings more productive.  At the very least, it underscores what every meeting truly needs: a goal.  So with that said, before the meeting even begins, make sure everyone understands the true objective to the meeting.

Own your meetings and take charge of them and always keep them moving forward at a quick and efficient pace; don’t waste time.  Good meetings are the result of good leadership.  Take control of the meetings you lead and attend and make sure you keep the discussion timely, useful and relevant.  Show your colleagues that you respect their time and their busy schedules and daily responsibilities that need their focus and attention.  Set a specific timeframe for your meeting and stick to it; try to avoid running over.  Be concise and to the point by staying focused and on topic; don’t let your meetings get out of hand or take massive tangents.  Always keep your target goal in mind.

Make sure to cull the constructive input you need from everyone present.  In essence, the point of a meeting is two-way communication so it’s crucial to get honest input from everyone involved.  If you are leading a meeting, make sure everyone participates and is heard.  Make it engaging and interesting.  Don’t make people feel like the outcome of the meeting is already decided ahead of time and don’t stifle the discussion.

Keep track of the progress of a meeting and take copious notes so that you don’t repeat things in future meetings.  Set goals to get certain things accomplished and accomplish them.  Keep your group updated on certain developments which will in turn lead you to organize future meetings more efficiently.

Create a presentation or have materials handy to pass out to all attendees to keep them informed of where the meeting is going.  Have a plan and stick to it.  By using visuals, you are more likely to engage the participants of a meeting and get people to understand your point, goals and objectives.  This also leads to better feedback.

Set an engaging tone.  Find a unique way to turn a boring introduction into an icebreaker.  By doing this, you’ll be able to establish a rapport among the group members while setting expectations that everyone needs to contribute.  Business meetings don’t always have to be boring, monotonous and routine; make them fun by setting a positive tone from the onset.

If you are leading a meeting, be a good facilitator.  Don’t dominate the conversation or lecture and additionally, don’t let one participant take over; make sure everyone’s opinions are heard.  If some people haven’t spoken up, ask them what their thoughts are.  Make sure everyone is listening and engaged.  Try not to solely lead with your opinion and let others make their voices heard and listen in response.  Let others raise concerns and address them.

Solicit opinions and the ideas and perspectives of others.  Feedback is vital to any meeting.  Ask questions and engage others.  Turn your meeting into a brainstorming game.  Ask attendees to give suggestions not just on the topic at hand but even let them make suggestions on what they think are the most pressing things that need to be addressed.  Cover the most important points first so that you don’t run over time.  Not everything can be addressed in one meeting and you should always be cognizant of that.

Keep your meetings as brief as possible.  You should always remember that people don’t have vast attention spans and can easily get bored and distracted.  Make your meetings timely and fun.  Pay attention to the participants’ body language.  If you see that people need a break, give them one.  Don’t let your meeting run more than an hour if possible.  Try to schedule them once a week.  Remember, you don’t need to meet every day.

Make sure your meetings don’t happen in a vacuum.  Close with an action plan and let people know what was decided and what comes next.  It’s easy for people to walk out of a meeting and forget what the point was.  Don’t let that happen.  Ask people to send follow-up suggestions by asking them to take notes during the meeting so that they can remember key points.  Make sure you have a system in place to keep track of what was decided on.  Assign tasks to people for after the meeting.  Make sure they’ve culled the proper information for follow-up.  It’s key that you let everyone know what the next steps are and close by briefly outlining what will happen and be discussed during the next meeting.

Lastly and most importantly, show your appreciation.  Always close by thanking the participants for their time, effort and input.  Make them feel like they were part of the process and key to making the meeting a success.  Always close on a positive note.

So what have we learned here today?  How have you made your own business meetings more efficient and effective?  Have you used the suggestions and tips I’ve laid out today or have you used other methods for meeting success?  Leave a comment and let me know your thoughts!

Here are some interesting articles you might want to check out about how to have more productive business meetings:

“The Top 10 Tips for Better Business Meetings”: http://webinar-services-review.toptenreviews.com/top-10-tips-for-better-business-meetings.html

“Conducting Effective Business Meetings”: http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/conducting-effective-business-meetings.html

“11 Simple Tips for Having Great Meetings”: http://www.fastcompany.com/3013013/dialed/11-simple-tips-for-having-great-meetings-from-some-of-the-worlds-most-productive-peop

“Five Steps to Better Business Meetings”: http://www.pacificopenbible.com/five-steps-to-better-business-meetings/

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Until next time…