6 Ways to Hold More Productive Meetings

Wouldn’t it be great if your meetings were shorter and led to better efficiency and collaboration in the team?  Meetings, at their best, are a way to set parameters, check project status, and review obstacles to goal achievement.  Today, we’re sharing 5 tested ways leaders hold more productive meetings.

1. Own The Meeting or Assign an Owner to It.

Have one person responsible for getting attendees into the room and keeping the meeting on track.  When someone accepts ownership of the meeting, they are more likely to make sure it doesn’t get off track.  Ownership is a reason many leaders hold more productive meetings.

2. Put The Meeting Purpose on The Board

Before the attendees enter the room, before anyone utters a word, get your vision on the meeting room board.  Write in a short statement, your meeting’s intention. This adds focus to the event, and it helps everyone, including you, stick to the agenda.

3. Input and Output

Make your meeting agenda more fruitful by sharing pre-printed material to read before attending. By letting your team know to expect something as they leave the meeting, you grab their attention.  Use that opportunity to share your expectations from your team members.

If you can’t list what you will put into the meeting and what you expect to come out of the meeting, cancel it.  When there is no purpose or expectation, there is no way leaders hold more productive meetings. That is actually a briefing.  Those can be done at your morning standups. Don’t waste your time and theirs creating a purposeless meeting.

4. Avoid a Chat Session

Without an agenda, meetings devolve into a bunch of people sitting around talking.  Without direction, your team loses their creative, productive, momentum. If you are teambuilding, recognize it as the purpose of the meeting you called.  If that isn’t the agenda, maybe you don’t need the meeting.

5. Talk Less

No matter who you are, no matter how eloquently you speak, there are times when you need to stop talking. Before you speak, remember that every time you speak, you’re setting the environment.  In every sentence, “You’re shaping the people that you’re growing, coaching and mentoring.” – CommandReady Forged in 84. Share your message, but keep it brief, then let your team share their ideas. After all, your job is to develop your team, not supply their answers. 

6. Review Your Meetings

List all your re-occurring meetings and who must attend.  Complete a seven minute drill on two of your re-occurring meetings. Here are questions to ask yourself. Do you need to meet as often as you do?  Are your meetings effective?  Should you have different meetings?

One of the ways insightful Leaders hold more productive meetings, is by cancelling unbeneficial meetings.  They hold fewer meetings, but make sure each one actively yields benefits.  Fewer meetings with more productivity and engagement are better than frequent meetings. 

Meetings don’t have to drain your time and energy away from accomplishing goals.  They can effectively enhance your goal achievement.  To do that, you need to put some thought and effort into the meetings, as you do into other leadership activities. Learn more about thoughtful leadership training here.