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Meetings shouldn’t suck. So says Mary Abbajay, President and Co-founder of the leadership consulting firm Careerstone Group. She also believes they shouldn’t be boring, time wasters or one-way information-sharing sessions.
“Meetings should involve gathering team members to use their brain power and talents to accomplish specific goals,” Abbajay said.
The stakes for running successful meetings are high. Poorly-run sessions result in disengaged and disillusioned staff who don’t feel valued or heard. They’re also a huge waste of resources. About $65 billion a year in the American economy is wasted on poorly-run meetings that sap workplace productivity, according to Abbajay.
Here’s how to make sure every meeting you run is a collaborative conversation that results in purposeful progress toward clearly defined goals.
Begin with the end in mind. Plan for a meeting by focusing on a clear purpose. “Everything that takes place should flow from what you’re trying to accomplish,” Abbajay said. “Determine the goals of the gathering and who needs to be in attendance to drive toward the deliverables.”
Then and only then are you ready to start designing the meeting agenda, which should be based on specific conversations that need to take place to accomplish the meeting’s purpose. For example, the agenda of a problem-solving session could dedicate time to defining the problem, figuring out what led to the issue in the first place and deciding what a successful solution would look like.
“Think of setting an agenda as an outline of the discussions that need to take place in an allotted amount of time,” Abbajay said.
Distribute the agenda well before scheduled meetings to give the team enough lead time to review the goals and prepare their talking points.
Also, crafting an agenda will help you decide whether you need to call a meeting in the first place. Remember, meetings should involve the collaborative sharing of ideas. If you need to simply share information or update the status of a project without the need for feedback, record a video presentation and distribute it to your team instead of calling a meeting.
Set the tone. Open each meeting by stating the purpose of the gathering, how the conversation should proceed, the expectations for participation and the specific goals that must be met.
“Never assume that your team understands exactly why they’re meeting with you — even if you’ve spelled it out on the agenda,” Abbajay said.
Establish the principles that govern the rules of engagement at the start of individual meetings or as a company-wide policy.
“Setting expectations for behavior — and enforcing them — is one of the most important factors to running effective and successful meetings,” Abbajay said. “Once they’re established, you can politely intervene when someone is preventing the team from focusing on the meeting’s purpose.”
Establishing behavioral norms — no speaking out of turn or holding sidebar conversations, no rambling (share the air!) and no beating a dead horse — also empowers staff members to police the behavior of their colleagues and support you in running a great meeting.
Stay on point. It’s not uncommon for conversations to go off on an unexpected tangent. When a participant brings up a topic that isn’t germane to the purpose of the meeting, acknowledge the idea or thought, write it down and let the person know that it will be addressed at the end of the meeting if there’s time or during a separate conversation.
If someone is taking up too much time or repeating a viewpoint that has already been covered, interject with a benign phrase like, I understand your point. Thank you for sharing it. Does anyone else have an opinion?
“It takes a great deal of skill and a deft touch to run effective meetings,” Abbajay said. “You need to strike a balance between creating an environment in which people feel like they can contribute and making sure conversations don’t go off the rails.”
Encourage active participation. It’s important to make space in the meeting for everyone to have an opportunity to share their thoughts and opinions — from the most unreserved member of your team to the shyest introvert, who might have great insights to share but might also need time to collect their thoughts.
Building natural pauses into the conversation gives everyone a chance to think about the next topic of discussion. A phrase like this often works: Next, I’d like to talk about the biggest challenges our customers face. Think about that for a few seconds, and then we’ll go around the room to hear from everyone.
The “hot potato” format is a creative way to ensure everyone is engaged and participates in a meeting. After asking for feedback on a specific question, the person who shares their opinion first picks the next person to speak. The hot potato is passed until everyone has a chance to speak.
“The group gets involved in soliciting the feedback of their colleagues,” Abbajay said. “It’s a fun and effective way to run an engaging meeting, which allows people to share their expertise and feel valued.”
Remote work has heightened the importance of making sure meetings are interactive and interesting. “Running virtual meetings requires rethinking how conversations are structured and taking specific steps to make sure attendees are actively participating in the conversation,” Abbajay said.
Hold your tongue. Remain neutral when your team is discussing or debating a topic, so they’re not influenced by your perceived preference. “If you truly care about hearing other people’s opinions, share your thoughts only after everyone has had a chance to speak,” Abbajay said.
It’s also helpful to repeat what people say during the meeting, even if you disagree with their stance. “Acknowledging and validating opinions make staff feel like they’ve been heard,” Abbajay said.
One last piece of advice: Recap the action items at the end of each meeting assign them to staff members and set due dates. Meeting leaders often forget these simple steps, but the measures avoid dedicating additional meeting time to discussing unresolved issues.
That would most definitely suck.
