A Few Basic Tips for Running an Effective Meeting

Have you ever sat through a meeting and wanted to pull out your hair or crawl through your skin because of how poorly it was ran? Everyday millions of meetings are taking place and wasting productive time and company dollars because they do not follow basic meeting etiquette. There is a multitude of tools and rules for having a productive meeting, but today I will share a few of the main ones with you.

Have an Objective & an Agenda
How are you supposed to accomplish anything in a meeting if you don’t have an objective and an agenda? Your agenda is a list of items or topics that lead the conversation to produce what you want to come out of that meeting, the objective. Many people create an agenda but make the mistake of not sending it ahead of time or without enough of a notice. If you want people to prepare for the meeting and bring their ideas or knowledge about a topic, you should send out the agenda at least 24-48 hours ahead of time.

Stay On Task
Your agenda is also to help you stay on task to meet your objective by the end of the meeting time. It is helpful for everyone participating in the meeting if they can see the amount of time dedicated to each topic, and it allows for you to make an easier transition to the next topic if someone is talking too much over the allotted time (i.e. “that is a great point, I will make a note to add this to our next meeting, but because of the time, we will need to move on to our next item on the agenda”).

Set Rules for Communication
There is nothing worse than sitting in a meeting and listening to people trying to talk over each other or having side bar conversations. Talking over someone else is not only rude but there is no way for anyone to be able to follow what is being said. Depending on the dynamics of the group, everyone might decide a good rule is to raise their hand before talking. Another rule might be, when one person starts talking, everyone else listens. Some companies have even found it helpful to have the rules in print and visible during every meeting. If you don’t establish boundaries with your group early on, it will be difficult to try and keep them on track and have a meeting where individuals feel heard and respected.

End On Time
If you are sticking to the agenda and creating “parking lots” for those important items that need to be discussed in the future, the meeting will end on time. The caution here is to remain flexible. If a topic arises that needs to be dealt with in order to get through the other items, then it needs to be addressed at that point. This does not mean that the meeting now runs over but rather, the meeting coordinator informs the importance of this new topic and that person and/or the group decides what topic will be moved to the parking lot for the next meeting. The other option is to inform the group that this will be pushing the meeting back X number of minutes and then ask if people are able to stay. It is important to keep on schedule in order for your participants to respect your leadership. You don’t know what the meeting participants have after this meeting. Regardless of what position you are in, don’t assume that this meeting trumps anything else they have going on. When you respect their time, they will respect you.

Don’t meet with people just to meet. Have a goal for the meeting and be sure to start off communicating that goal. Follow these simple rules for your meetings and begin to feel and be more productive!