Hold More Effective Meetings With these 7 Useful Tactics.

According to Fuze and Visual.ly about 15% of an organization’s collective time is spent in meetings. Turning meeting time into a productive period is a priority for any successful organizations. Consequential, valuable, and engaging meetings require a clear goal and an open dialog, this will ensure that each meeting runs smoothly and effectively – saving you and your team members time and money. A Microsoft survey carried out in 2015 claims 71% of meetings are considered unproductive, this means that they have no clear-cut outcome and no productive resolutions. It is time for a meeting revolution! Start the revolution by questioning the value of each meeting you attend, by preparing for your meetings, and by ensuring that the right people, and only the right people, are invited.
Here are a few tips to help you prepare for and hold more effective meetings

Make Sure It is Necessary

Scheduling and holding a meeting is expensive when you account for the time of the people attending. According to Microsoft’s survey, an average person spends at least 5.6 hours in meetings each week. So, make efforts to determine that a meeting is the best opportunity to solve the problem or improve the process. Does the meeting need to happen? Or could an email, chat, phone call, or an in-person conversation resolve the issue? If it’s a topic that requires more thought, then maybe the meeting is premature, and more time should be scheduled for strategic thinking.

Define the Objectives

It is obviously a waste of time for the meeting to give out information that would be better circulated in an email. It is perfectly proper to hold a meeting if the information should be heard from a person or needs some clarification and comment to make sense of it. It’s also important to hold a meeting if it has deep implications for the members of the meeting. Ensure only relevant stakeholders are invited to the meeting to avoid wasting the time of all the other employees, everyone else should receive the meeting results in an email.

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Remain Time Conscious

Watching the clock is important for an effective meeting. When nobody takes charge of managing time, it is easy to become careless and unfocused. Remember – when people attend a meeting they should not do anything else. Make the time count! Starting the meeting on time and ending on time – or a few minutes early – will quickly enhance your reputation as an organized person.
If you are running a large or complex meeting, consider asking a colleague to serve as timekeeper. If managing meetings to the clock is challenging for you, start by arriving early at the meeting. That means avoiding back to back commitments on your calendar whenever possible. 80% of meetings should only be 15 minutes or less, to ensures you only allocate time to things that actually matter and can’t be discussed via email. So keep it short, keep it brief and stay on course.

Ban Technology

The reality is that if people can bring their phones or laptops into the room, they won’t be focusing on the meeting or contributing to it. Due to the rampant multitasking in meetings, they’ll be emailing, surfing the web, or just playing around with their gadget. Eyes up here, please.

Control Digression

When people get off topic or raise extrinsic points, refocus them to the agenda. Ask them if you can address unrelated items at another time. If an individual continues to go on a tangent, ask him specifically what’s bothering him. By addressing the underlying issue, you may be able to appease the person and get the meeting back on track.

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End with An Action Plan

Leave the last few minutes of every meeting to discuss the next steps. This discussion should include deciding who is responsible for what, and what the deadlines are. Otherwise, all the time you spent on the meeting will have been in vain.

Follow Up

It’s quite common for people to come away from the same meeting with very different interpretations of what transpired. Sending out a memo, highlighting the accomplishments of the meeting, to everyone that attended will reduce the risk of misconception. Use a tool like Microsoft OneDrive to document the responsibilities which were given, tasks delegated, and any assigned deadlines. That way, everyone will be on the same page.

With about 11 million business meetings occurring each day, one thing is clear: Meetings are a mainstay of business culture. When they are conducted effectively, they inspire and ignite innovation, which leads to higher-performing teams and a stronger bottom line.

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