Tip #1: Determine the Purpose of the Meeting
Once a leader establishes the purpose of the meeting, then participants come better prepared, knowing what they need to bring and how they are expected to interact. Here are the following purposes for running a meeting:
- Decision Making: Participants are charged with making a decision
Status: Participants are expected to provide the status of projects or agreed-upon
actions/commitments from the prior meeting - Informational: The meeting leader shares and disseminates information
- Problem Solving: The objective is to solve a problem and establish an action plan for execution
- Data Gathering: Participants are expected to gather data or research a subject before and during the meeting and share findings during the meeting
Tip #2: Determine Logistics
- Identify participants
- Determine location, date, and time
- Prepare Agenda
- Determine how participants are expected to prepare
- Establish norms or rules of engagement
Tip #3: Seating Matters
There is a growing volume of work on the significance of seating positions and their effect on group behavior and relationships. While not all the findings are generally agreed upon, what does seem true is that:
- When participants sit face-to-face across a table, it facilitates opposition, conflict, and disagreement. While this doesn’t turn allies into enemies, it does suggest that the meeting leader should think about whom he sits opposite himself.
- On a positive note, sitting side by side makes disagreements and confrontations harder!
- Generally, proximity to the meeting leader is a sign of honor and favor. This is most marked when he/she is at the head of a long, narrow table
Tip #4: Circulate an Agenda
- Distribute a precise, time-conscious agenda to meeting participants
Tip #5: Clarify Agenda Items
At the start of the discussion of any item, the speaker should make the following things clear:
- Is he/she providing information, soliciting opinions, or seeking feedback/suggestions?
- Is this topic a preliminary deliberation to give the participants something to go away with and think about?
- Is there action to be pursued outside the meeting? If so, what action precisely?
Tip #6: Start the Meeting with Something Positive
When the meeting starts with something positive, the participants begin to look forward to the meeting versus having the attitude of “same ole, same ole.” We call this filling the trust tank. Here are some of Insight’s favorites:
- Give a teammate some love—ask around the table for each person to provide recognition to a team member—can be small or big
- Recognize the team for achieving a goal or demonstrating an organizational value
- Recognize an individual or Department for attaining a goal or demonstrating an organizational value
- Completion of a project
- Acknowledge someone who demonstrated excellent leadership
- Acknowledge someone who demonstrated excellent internal customer service
- Acknowledge someone who went over and above
- Whatever you’d like to see more of in your organization…RECOGNIZE IT!
Tip #7: Move Beyond “Discussion” to “Action”
- Time-starved teams need more than chatter and progress reports. Productive meetings depend on clearly defined objectives toward which people can work and against which they can measure progress.
- Move beyond “discussion” to “action” by using verbiage like:
- discuss and decide
- discuss and build a plan
- discuss and identify key barriers to success
Tip #8: Listen to the Sound of Silence
In a typical meeting, most participants will be silent most of the time. Silence can indicate general agreement, no critical contribution to make, or the need to wait and hear more before saying anything. But there are two kinds of silence to watch for:
- The silence of diffidence. Someone may make a valuable contribution, but be concerned about its
possible reception and keep it to himself/herself.
Tip within a Tip: It is essential to draw out such a contribution and express interest and pleasure (though not necessarily agreement) to encourage further contributions. - The silence of hostility. This is not hostility to ideas but to the meeting leader, to the meeting itself, and/or to the decision-making process.
Tip #9: Track Metrics to Ensure Effectiveness
To ensure quality meetings, one might track and measure what happens in the meetings, such as:
- The moment a conversation changes or goes off track.
- Who interrupts whom, and what happens to the conversation?
- Who still needs to be in the conversation but might appreciate being invited in.
- When a conversation ends without a specific commitment or clarity on the next steps and timeframe. Look for and notice just one of these things for two meetings. Then, pick another to monitor for the next two meetings. Soon, you’ll see patterns in your and others’ behavior. Then, you can decide what you can do as a leader and a contributor to improve the quality of the meeting.
Tip #10: Hold Participants Accountable
Participants have a responsibility to ensure effective meetings, too. Encourage participants to ask the following questions of each speaker to enhance productivity and effectiveness:
- What outcome do you want? Where would you like us to be at the end of this
- topic?
- What are you looking for from us, as participants, during the meeting?
- Can we review our commitments before we wrap up? I want to be sure I understand what you need and when you need it.
- I’d love to hear what other people are taking away from the discussion. May we take a few minutes to do this before we leave this topic
Tip #11: Call on the Most Senior People Last
This isn’t a hard and fast rule, but typically, once someone of high authority has weighed in on a topic, less senior participants are likely to feel inhibited. Tip within a Tip: Work up the pecking order instead of down. You’ll be apt to get a wider spread of views and ideas. Just be sure that “junior” participants are asked to frame their contributions within their personal experience and competence (e.g., “Peter, you were at the APTA conference—what did you pick up there?”).
Tip #12: Close On a Note of Achievement
Even if the final item is left unresolved, you can refer to an earlier item that was well-resolved as you close the meeting and thank the group.
Tip # Plus 1: Distribute Meeting Minutes as Quickly As Possible
Minutes should be distributed as quickly as possible. While brief, they should include these facts:
- The time and date of the meeting, where it was held, and who led it.
- Names of all present and absent.
- All agenda items (and other items) were discussed, and all decisions were reached. If the action
was agreed on, record the name of the person responsible for the assignment. - The time at which the meeting ended (important because it may be significant later to know
whether the discussion lasted 15 minutes or 6 hours). - The date, time, and place of the next meeting.
