How to Run Effective Business Meetings
- Posted by admin on September 30th, 2009 filed in Business and Management
It’s common knowledge throughout organisations around the world that meetings usually take an inordinately large amount of the potentially productive working time of employees - and most of the time, these meetings don’t even achieve their intended purpose.
To begin with, we need to recognise the features of a successful meeting. In a “nut shell”, these particular features can be described as being result oriented and limited to a set time period. Let’s review some key steps which should be followed for effectively conducting any kind of business meeting.
1. Preparation - Just like any other business endeavour, advanced preparation is absolutely necessary, as the better prepared you are, the more productive the meeting will turn out to be. Besides, this way you will be able to make much more meaningful contributions.
2. Timing - A business meeting should be conducted according to a time frame, and it should commence and end by the specified time. Scheduled meetings which are task oriented generally receive significantly more active participation.
3. Agenda - There needs to be an agenda which is readily available that clearly outlines the topics to be discussed in the upcoming meeting. This agenda will give a fair idea of what is to be discussed, thereby enabling all of the participants to prepare in advance for the proposed topics.
4. Focus - It’s important that the focus of the meeting should be maintained steadfastly on the topics which were agreed beforehand - as it is very easy for a meeting to veer off in a different direction, therefore meeting leaders and participants must strive towards minimising the drifts from the set aim.
5. Communication - Complete and accurate information should always be provided in every meeting to ensure effective communication.
6. Agreement - Often during a meeting, the views of two or more people won’t match, but it’s crucial that at the end of the meeting all of the participants agree on a common decision. After all, as anyone invoved in management training knows all to well, this unilateral agreement on a single line of action is the common aim of every meeting.
7. Feedback - A meeting may be successful in achieving the desired result, however there may still be room for improvement in the overall method or implementation. To have a clear idea how effective the meeting was, request feedback from the participants.
8. Confidentiality - The confidential material discussed in the meeting should be restricted to the attendants only, and if possible, measures should be taken to ensure that unauthorised persons can’t access any of the restricted documents or materials.
Finally, at the end of the meeting, most business coaching experts suggest that a brief review should be discussed, covering what was discussed during the meeting as well as any major decisions which were agreed upon.
Alan Gillies is the Managing Director of the L2L Group. He specialises in delivering Executive Coaching, Training and Consultancy Services to International Businesses across the World. Want to discover more about these insightful business building success strategies? Get Alan’s essential FREE Business Pack today!
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