How Can You Get More Out of Your Meetings?
A common pain point with executive team and business leaders is they often find themselves inundated with meetings, ranging from team catch-ups to strategic planning sessions. However, not all meetings are created equal, and many of us struggle to extract maximum value from these gatherings.
Meetings are a fundamental aspect of our work life, if done right, they provide opportunities for collaboration, decision-making, and progress tracking. However, they can often become unproductive time vortexes if not managed effectively.
To ensure that your meetings are constructive and contribute meaningfully to your organisation's objectives, and productivity, here are some of our top strategies to consider, to get the most out of your meetings.
Understanding Your Role
Before you set-up or start a meeting you’ll need to have a couple of roles established: one is the facilitator (it doesn't have to be the manager; but it might start that way). This should rotate frequently. There should also be a timekeeper to keep the meeting on track – and don’t underestimate the importance of this role!
Embrace The Power of Preparation
Encourage participants to prepare thoroughly before your meeting. Distribute relevant materials, such as agendas, objectives, background information, and pre-reads, well in advance. This allows attendees to familiarise themselves with the topics, gather their thoughts, and contribute meaningfully to the discussion. The better the preparation, the better the quality of the discussion in the meeting – guaranteed!
Setting Clear Expectations
You need to make sure that your meeting is about respect and making sure that there is a clear understanding that everybody's time is precious. Start your meetings on time and finish on time. You don't wait for people; you just start. Even if you've got people dialling in, on video or conference call, you just keep going, especially when you’re in a “Daily Huddle”.
Lead by Example
As a CEO, or senior leader, your behaviour sets the tone for the entire organisation. When you demonstrate the importance of effective meetings by actively participating, listening attentively, and respecting others' contributions, it provides a blueprint for best practices in communication, decision-making, and time management. It will inspire your team to follow suit.
Great Meetings Have Great Participation
If you've got a culture where people are vibrant and they're engaged, they bring good stuff into the meeting. If you have good meetings, the number of emails that people are involved in, and the number of conversations that you have in the corridors drops significantly.
Establish One Clear Message
When there is one clear message, everyone is hearing the same thing rather than having multiple conversations about the same topic.
Businesses are often criticised and even self-critical of the fact that we have done all this work around their strategic plan, but it sits and lives in the top drawer or even the bottom drawer somewhere and it never sees the light of day.
If we have good meetings, we're talking about our strategic principles every single day and what we want to do make progress on those so if there are days that we're kind of off track, we're picking it up and reiterating those principles.
Follow up
Conclude each of your meetings by summarising key decisions, action items, and next steps. Assign clear responsibilities and deadlines to ensure accountability and follow-through.
Circulate meeting minutes or a summary of outcomes to all participants, reinforcing commitments and providing a reference for future discussions. By documenting your action items and tracking progress, you are then able to maintain momentum and drive tangible results beyond the meeting room. On this, businesses with great cultures, have individuals note and take-away their own accountabilities and actions from a meeting.
By incorporating these strategies into your meeting practices, you can significantly enhance your productivity, foster collaboration, and ultimately maximise the value derived from each meeting.
While also setting clear objectives, managing time and attendance, structuring discussions, promoting participation, and enforcing accountability, you create a conducive environment for you and your team to get the most out of your meetings, but more importantly plan the steps needed to propel your business forward.
For more insights like this on growing your business and enhancing your productivity, check out our other blogs.