If you are a business person, an entrepreneur, or a manager, you are the one who spends a large part of your working week on different types of meetings. So you need to hold more productive meetings.
Probably, you already know that meetings can be seen as unproductive, boring, and useless sometimes for you and your employees. However, you need them. Your work depends on them.
You hold meetings with customers, employees, and business partners. You can’t escape them, but you can ensure that meetings run smoothly achieving their purpose without spending too much time on them.
I want to list some recommendations that will help you to hold really productive meetings.
#1 If you can, try scheduling small meetings as much as possible.
Some meetings can have a very specific purpose. They are held because of a very specific situation that needs to be discussed and bring a recommendation about future action in that particular situation. Such meetings will be short and highly focused on a specific subject.
Related: Best Meeting Minutes Software Solutions for Your Company
#2 Try to schedule one on one meetings.
The 1 on 1 meeting is more productive than large formal meetings. They can be easily controlled and will bring a joint conclusion very quickly. You need a strong agenda and use it in your business. You can use a 1 on 1 meeting template that will help you manage the whole process and have clear next steps.
Whenever you can solve a situation with such one on one meeting, you need to use it without bigger formalization and including different staff on the subject. So, if you want to have more productive meetings try one on one short meetings whenever you can.
Here is how you can organize effective meetings in 27 minutes or less.
#3 Ensure that attendees know the purpose and their role at the meeting.
It is much better to prepare your staff before the meeting instead to have people that will be surprised why they are there and what their job is.
This will ensure quick discussion and a more productive meeting.
#4 Always prepare a meeting agenda if you want to organize productive meetings.
An agenda is a tool that will organize the flow of the meeting and can have a powerful effect on a meeting’s timing.
Try to manage the meeting according to that agenda when you have an agenda.
#5 Ensure that things that need an easy decision are first on the agenda.
To make a meeting more productive sometimes it is better to put the easiest things first on your agenda. It will create a feeling of achievement and will force attendees to make rapid progress.
#6 Keep to the original schedule.
If your meeting is scheduled for 9:00 AM, then it needs to start at that time. Don’t wait for the latecomers and don’t lose your time telling them what they have missed.
#7 Allow everyone to discuss, but according to the rules.
Give everyone who attends the meeting to express themselves, but you need to ensure that discussion will contribute to a better meeting conclusion.
#8 Finish meeting with a specific conclusion.
Why are you holding a meeting? Probably, to solve a problem, to decide, to negotiate… All meetings need to have clear conclusions that will be the basis for the future action steps. Meetings are here to help your business, not to decrease your productivity.
