The ability to hold effective business meetings is an essential skill when it comes to creating a successful team and company. Without appropriate connection and communication, there will be uncertain goals, little camaraderie, and what amounts to a boat full of sailors all rowing their own way. Making sure that each meeting is effective and serves the intended purpose means that goals will be created, and your business will continue to run smoothly. Let’s discuss a few ways that you can improve your business meetings and make sure that your team comes out feeling empowered, focused, and with an overall feeling of success.
MAKE SURE TO HAVE AN AGENDA
When you get in a car to take a road trip, you have a destination in mind as well as a GPS to lead you there. Not only that, you have little stops programmed into your GPS route for sight-seeing, food, hotels, and more. Without these things you’re going to drive aimlessly, headed nowhere, quite likely going in circles or ending up right back where you started from.
In the same way, if you start a meeting with no plan in mind, no goals for the meeting, and no order to the presentation or conversation, then you’re not setting yourself up for a successful journey. On the contrary, you are setting off with nothing to guide you and no clear destination.
Not only do you want to have an agenda, but you also need to create a tangible copy for everyone in attendance. They need to see the purpose of the meeting, to understand the flow, and know where everything is headed. This not only gives them a basic framework, but it also allows them to participate more readily because they will know the topics and the purpose in advance and have time to consider how they can best contribute.
SHOW RESPECT TO YOUR TEAM BY BEGINNING AND ENDING ON TIME
Planning your meeting means that you are going to determine a time to begin and a time to end. It also means that this is something your team is counting on. Your agenda is going to take a certain amount of time to get through, so the ending needs to reflect the amount of time needed.
Be sure to arrive early and prepare so that you can start right on time. If you don’t start on time, then you only have two options. One option is to not make it through everything on your agenda, which ends up negating the purpose of the meeting. The other option is making the meeting run late, which is not respectful of the participants and their time. If you make a meeting run late, you’re going to end up with a room full of frustrated people, and much of the meeting will have fallen on deaf ears.
In order to prevent both of those issues, make sure to arrive early, get ready, and start on time.
KEEP THE MEETING SHORT
Making sure that the meeting doesn’t run too long is another way to be respectful of your team, as well as to make sure that they are paying attention during the meeting, participating, and giving their all.
LISTEN TO OTHERS
Give everyone a chance to share during the meeting and be sure to use good listening skills. Not only does that show that you value the thoughts and ideas of others, but it also sets the tone for the treatment of others during the meeting. Nobody likes being in a meeting where people are talking over each other and continually trying to assert their own points instead of listening and having a productive discussion.
THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX
Do your best to keep meetings from being mundane. Think outside of the box when planning your meeting. How you can you engage team members? How can you get them to participate more? Hands-on activities, role playing, games, and a little humor, are just some of the ideas that you can use to make your meetings engaging and to keep your team on their toes.
Good meetings recharge and rejuvenate your team and get them feeling ready to accomplish both their short-term and long-term goals for the company. By creating an agenda and sticking to it, respecting peoples’ time, having a productive discussion, and keeping people engaged, you are sure to improve the results that you are getting out of your meetings.
Giant can help prepare visual or written materials that will aid you in holding effective business meetings. Contact us anytime for a free quote!