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How much time do you waste…I mean spend…in meetings every week? Meeting effectiveness is a critical leadership issue that needs improvement in just about all organizations.
Effective meetings look like this:
- Have a defined purpose and clear objectives with a written agenda
- Members have prepared in advance and are engaged
- Balance of discipline, flexibility, diplomacy and determination
- Members have defined roles and respect established ground rules
- Efficient, result focused, and ultimately save time and effort
- Result in a series of tangible action items
- Capture insights and enthusiasm
- Motivate people to specific action
- Efficient and result focused
- Are documented and summarized with commitments well understood
On the other hand, ineffective meetings look like this:
- Lack participation
- Dominating leader or member, unbalanced involvement
- People don’t listen to each other
- Stays off track too long
- Inefficient, results unclear
- Ideas and different views are criticized or squelched
- Action assignments and outcomes are not clear
There are four steps you need to follow to make sure that your next meeting is effective. Here’s a brief introduction to the four steps:
Step 1 – Prepare
- Ensure the purpose of the meeting is well understood. Ask what would happen if this meeting did not take place.
- Prepare the agenda in advance.
- Ensure that the desired outcomes of the meeting are articulated in advance.
- Make sure all the participants are prepared in advance.
Step 2 – Communicate
- Inform all participants well in advance of the details of the meeting; the purpose and outcomes; and, preparation required.
- Circulate agenda in advance, as well as any other reading material
Step 3 – Control
- Start on time
- Review ground rules and assign roles
- Use a “Parking Lot” to keep on the agenda
Step 4 – Document and Follow-up
- Record main discussion points and decisions for future reference. This list becomes your meeting minutes.
- Clarify actions and assign names and deadlines to them.
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