How to Facilitate Effective, Productive and Efficient Meetings
How often have you sat in a meeting thinking:
- This is a waste of my time
- I could be doing something more useful
- What's the point?
- Why am I here?The results of a LinkedIn poll I carried out recently suggest that it’s a pretty common feeling!
But sometimes, a meeting is still the best way to share ideas, smooth out issues and get things done. The key lies in making your meeting as effective as possible, and if you’re leading that meeting, a large part of that responsibility lies with you.
Taking charge effectively at meetings - a key leadership skill
If taking the lead at meetings is a new role for you, the idea can seem very daunting. But being able to take charge of a meeting effectively is a core leadership communication skill, so it’s worth taking the time to learn how to do this well.
Recommended Reading: 5 Top Communication Skills You Need to Be an Effective Leader
Here are 5 key questions to help you set up an effective, efficient meeting that doesn’t leave the attendees thinking it should have been an email!
1. Do you need a meeting?
Is a meeting the most effective way for you to communicate the message, solve the issue or brainstorm ideas on the topic with your team or co-workers?Perhaps there’s another way this could be done just as effectively - through Slack, email, or whatever collaborative system you use in your organisation?
Although fresh ideas and input can be helpful, if what you need is a single solution or answer rather than a discussion, sometimes keeping the matter to another communication channel can help you find a speedier resolution
2. What’s the purpose of the meeting?
Before committing to the meeting, make sure you know exactly what you want to achieve by holding it. Do you need to:
Brainstorm ideas
Kick off a new project
Formulate a plan
Make a decision
Share information
Once you’ve considered this, you might well end up back at point number one, and realise that this doesn’t need to be a meeting at all.
3. Who should attend the meeting?
Who needs to be at the meeting? To make proceedings as effective and productive as possible, keep the numbers attending as small as possible. To help with this, you could think about splitting your meeting into sections.
For example, if lots of stakeholders are involved in the topic up for discussion, does everyone need to be there for the entire duration? Could you have a general briefing to start, then let certain groups go once the relevant piece is over? Not only will this keep things moving along, it means you’re respecting the time of everyone attending.The next time you’re in a large meeting, take a look around at your fellow attendees and consider how much per hour it’s costing for each of those people to be there. If that meeting is not the most effective use of their time, that’s an expense the organisation really can’t afford.
4. How long will the meeting take?
How much time do you need to allocate for the meeting? We’ve all been stuck in that meeting that dragged on and on and on. Similar to question number 3, this consideration relates back to profitability and controlling costs.
Can you reduce the length of your routine meetings by 10 or 15 minutes? We often overestimate how long we need to discuss a topic, and working within that tighter timeframe can help everyone involved to stay on point.Switching your meetings to be 45 minutes long instead of an hour may not seem like much, but think about that in terms of the cost for each attendee over the course of a year or so - the time soon adds up.Once you’ve set the meeting length, consider how you can use the time you do have most effectively. A simple agenda that all attendees see in advance will help with this. Then if you cover everything ahead of schedule, can you close the meeting and finish up, rather than staying on to discuss other issues and topics you hadn’t planned for?
5. What needs to happen after the meeting?
How are you going to follow up with the next steps? What about writing up the minutes and sending them to the relevant parties? Who’ll hold everyone accountable to make sure they’re doing what they agreed to do?This final step is essential to make sure the time you spent at that meeting was worthwhile, with everything discussed and decided being translated into action.
Make your meetings organised, efficient and to the point
Time is a commodity that most of us are pretty short on these days, so figuring out how to make the most of that by leading effective meetings is a leadership skill that’s highly valued.With the help of the questions above, you’ll be able to plan and lead meetings that are fruitful, productive and don’t have the attendees checking their watches wishing they were anywhere but there! For more tips on making the most of your meetings, you might like to read:
3 Ways To Boost Your Confidence to Speak Up at Meetings