Make Meetings More Productive
Meetings. Yes, we've all experienced them somewhere in our lives. And some of them are not pleasant experiences as the meeting meanders all over the place and takes forever and maybe still reaches no good conclusion. Are there ways to improve the productiveness of a meeting? Time to find out!
Steps
- Know who is at your meeting. If you are chairing, knowing everyone's names it the most effective and personal manner for good interacting and keeping the participants under control. People like being referred to by name, simple fact!
- Practice active listening. The more you listen and the less you speak, the better. Not only do you set a prime example but you also encourage others to give their opinions uninterrupted.
- Be punctual about start and finish times. Everyone should know that you mean it when you say a meeting starts at one time and finishes at another. Make it a habit to not wait for late attendees. They will soon learn.
- Keep good records. Someone should be noting the decisions and major issues. This is for fast referral during the meeting so that things are slowed down by "he said/she said" arguments. Obviously also good for follow-up and great springboards for the next well-managed meeting.
- Use good humor. This makes meetings more interesting and helps to defuse possible negative conflicts. Make sure to let positive and constructive conflicts run their course, however; a good chair can use humor to aid this process.
- Be considerate of other's commitments and expect them to be the same of yours. Always explain that a meeting should finish on time because everyone has other commitments and time is precious. Using an agenda is a vital part of ensuring the meeting runs as scheduled and allotting time spaces for each item of business is crucial; again, the chair must be considerate of the time allotted and keep to it as best as possible.
Tips
- The person chairing a meeting should not be the note-taker; trying to do both is too large and distracting. However, the person chairing should note key points to be able to summarize them and feed them back to the participants when reaching decisions as a group.
Things You'll Need
- Notepad and pen
- Meeting plan - chart those present at meeting, using names or initials, so that you remember who is there
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