How to Hold Effective Meetings

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Holding effective meetings is an art form. Luckily, it is a skill that you can easily develop with practice and intention. Use the following tips to ensure that you are holding effective meetings in your business or organization.

1. Don’t Have a Meeting

The first key to having an effective meetings is to only have a meeting if you truly need a meeting. If something can be accomplished with a phone call or email, don’t call a meeting. Meetings should be reserved when you need collaboration from the attendees. For example, brainstorming a new product idea definitely calls for a meeting, but an update to existing project can probably be accomplished by an email A quick rule of thumb is if there is going to be mostly two way dialogue, have a meeting. If it is mostly one way communication (you informing people of something) utilize another channel like email or audio/video recordings.

2. Start with a Clear Objective

You should start developing you meeting with the why in mind. What are you looking to accomplish? This should be indicated in the meeting invite itself, the agenda, and any supplementary information (presentations, readouts, etc.). Additionally, start your meeting off with stating what your objective is very clearly. Don’t try to bury it in a bunch of fluffy speak, a simple “our objective today is to identify a product to launch next quarter” makes it very clear to everyone what you are trying to cause.

3. Look at the Invite List

U.S. Companies lose between $73-238 BILLION dollar a year to ineffective meetings. I bet you can recount a few meetings recently (probably event today) that you didn’t need to be on. Help eliminate this waste by only inviting the people that truly need to be there. We don’t give workers enough time to actually do the work, we tend to take up much of our time TALKING about the work. By not including someone on an invite, you are freeing up much needed time on their schedule.

If you aren’t sure who is needed in a meeting, you can always include someone as “optional” so they can choose whether they should join or not. Leave that determination up to them.

I will say however that there is nothing worse than getting on a call and the right people are not on, so take some time and identify who those key players are and make sure they are on. Do a little due diligence before the meeting and ask around who should be included to maximize the use of time.

4. No Multi-Tasking

This is going to sound a little childish, but ask participants to limit multi-tasking. Now, as adults we know we should pay attention to the task at hand and minimize but we all know how that goes. I , for one, am a HORRIBLE multi-talker on conference calls. I really need to force myself to focus because my mind tends to wander if I am not in the room. However, when the meeting organizer kindly asks us to minimize our distractions, I always make a more concerted effort to pay attention. You may annoy some people in requesting this but they are likely the ones that need reminding. (Read more about How to Become More Engaged Today!)

If you are you organizing an in-person meeting, try switching up the location. If you really need your group to focus try a conference room that you haven’t tried before. Sometimes a change in scenery can snap people out of their old habits. Also, I am a big fan of standing meetings for shorter duration meetings (20 minutes or less). Standing causes efficiency because people want to get back to their seats. They are less likely to waste time and multi-task. Plus, standing causes blood to flow more freely which helps you think more clearly. Standing or walking improves attention, memory, and other cognitive skills. So standing meetings are not only more efficient, but they cause participants to be smarter!

5. Make Sure Technology Works

87% of office workers experience stress when technology doesn’t work or is difficult to use during a meeting. I have been on so many calls when the technology derails or overshadows the intent of the meeting. Spend some time familiarizing yourself with the technology that you will use during the meeting. If at all possible, do a trial run before the meeting to make sure that you know how to set up the technology and test to ensure that it works properly.

Also, you will want to take steps to ensure that your meeting participants know how to use the technology. If you are using a new technology, make sure that the instructions are sent in advance of the call and can be easily followed. If you re worried, you can always ask participants to join the meeting early to allow for time to get everything set up properly before the meeting begins. A few minutes of preparation can save a meeting from going off the rails.

6. Connect the Meeting to Mission/Vision

We already identified that if you are having a meeting in the first place, you want people to contribute and collaborate. In order for people to do so, they must understand why.

Why is the work that you are setting out to do important? How does it contribute to the overall mission and vision of the company? What is our role in that? For example, if you are having a meeting about what product to launch next year, start the meeting with a discussion around how continued innovation helps you grow and meet the needs of your customers.

For example,

“Team, thank you for joining us today. The goal of this meeting is to work together to identify a product to launch next year. Our vision is to help all of our customers improve their lives by using our technology. The work that we are about to do today will help us continue our quest for innovation and allow us to help our customers achieve their goals.”

Connecting the meeting to the overall vision and mission of your company will help underscore the meeting’s importance. It will inspire employees to be engaged and put their best selfs forward. They will be actively shaping the customers future, rather than just joining the 2 o’clock call. What mindset would you rather have your participants be in during your meeting?

7. Ensure that Everyone Talks

The meeting organizer’s role during the meeting should be that of a facilitator. Your goal should be to ensure that your meeting participants are talking most of the time. Your role is gently guiding the discussion and ensuring that everyone has a voice.

In any group, there are people that are more outspoken and people that don’t take at all. Try to get everyone in the meeting talking, even if that means that you are calling out people to share their thoughts or answers questions. On meetings that I run, I keep a list of participants handy and look at who is contributing. If I notice someone not talking, I ask them a question or ask them to share their thoughts. This gets them engaged in the conversation at a level that they weren’t before.

Another main benefit to having the group do the talking, not the meeting organizer, is that they will feel much more connected to the outcome of the meeting. If they had an active say in what was developed and they were involved, they are much more committed and excited about the final product rather than just being an inactive bystander. The output of the meeting will be much more likely to stick if the group came up with it, rather than a few.

8. Establish Clear Next Steps

At the end of the meeting, recap what you discussed and provide clear next steps. I’ve seen some really great meetings go awry when the group leaves without a clear path forward. It can be really disappointing after you spend your time and energy discussing a topic to only have it lost with inaction.

Even if you don’t have a clear path forward, what is your strategy to identify a path forward? This could be as simple as everyone taking back a question to ponder or provide feedback on. Something, anything ,to keep the ball rolling!

9. Send a Written Recap/Notes

And finally, take a few minutes and send out a quick summary of what was discussed and a written confirmation of the next steps. This will help keep the topic and next steps fresh and top of mind and remove any chance for someone to miss what they need to do. This is also a tip to help with any team members that are neuro-divergent and respond well to written notes.

Do you have any tips for effective meetings? What has been the most ineffective meeting that you have ever participated in? What made it ineffective? Leave a comment!