Do you have regular staff meetings?
Are your people engaged? How do you know?
Are your people excited and brimming with fresh ideas to share? Do they listen to other people’s ideas?
Taking a page from one of my mentors, could you ask each person “So what” a week after your meetings and have them repeat back what you wanted them to remember.
Good meetings don’t just happen. Preparation makes good meetings. Planning and practice make good meetings. Good meeting techniques, like your organization, change and evolve. Some meetings will be better than others but your goal should be to have your people leave your meetings feeling like they understand what is going on, understand why something is happening, and be excited about moving forward.
Here are some universal basics that apply for any organization regardless of whether your meeting is in-person or online.
Have a purpose for each meeting; no purpose no meeting. Determine why a meeting should happen and what your desired outcome for the meeting is. Simply having a meeting on Friday at 10 am because you always have a meeting Friday at 10 am is not a good reason and you will only waste everyone’s time.
Have an agenda and specific goals for your meetings. It is okay to diverge from the agenda as long as the divergence is important to your overall purpose. Ask for feedback from your people to help keep your meetings relevant and meaningful to your people.
As a leader, it is your responsibility to make sure your associates understand what is going on in your organization. A useful tool is to recap at the beginning of your meeting the key points from the previous meeting. Ask one or two people to summarize in a sentence or two their understanding of those key points. At the end of the current meeting do the same thing for this meeting key points.
Clarity and transparency trump secrecy and subterfuge. When discussing sensitive topics, share as much as you can, ask for confidentiality as a way to build trust. If you want to build a culture of teamwork and build up your people … trust them. Encourage them to speak freely and appreciate that they will say things you may not agree with. Strong organizations encourage dialogue and open conversations.
Send the agenda to all of the attendees before the event. Try to use a recurring time slot and send the agenda out two weeks before the meeting. Sending a reminder the morning of the meeting helps remind everyone, particularly when the meeting is very large and/or involves people from other organizations.
Talk to your people never to your employees/volunteers. It is a subtle thing but great leaders understand this. When possible, engage your people sitting down. The physiological effects of face-to-face communication at an equal level cannot be underestimated.
Appreciate that if someone can misinterpret what you or someone else is saying they will. Simply telling people something without engaging them does not ensure they understand. Just like in selling an idea or product, comprehension is an interactive experience.
This is worth repeating, recap your meeting’s four or five key points by asking several people to tell you what they are “taking away” from this meeting.
You need to understand and appreciate that if you simply ask if someone understands a point discussed in your meeting, most people will say “yes” even if they do not. We are programmed by life to avoid the embarrassment of looking bad in front of our peers and co-workers, so adjust for this reality. Develop an atmosphere where your people feel comfortable making mistakes or having other people help them to understand new ideas and concepts.
Make your meetings interesting. Passion and enthusiasm are contagious, this is your organization, your career, and their careers too; find ways to engage and keep them interested in what is being said. For example, asking questions and making your meeting interactive is a great way to build interest. Having other people present information is another great way to break up the routine.
Encourage everyone to focus on the meeting. I have seen senior people working on other tasks during a meeting, this is incredibly rude and only encourages other people to do the same thing. Politely ask for cell phones and other screens to be turned off during the presentation. If you notice someone bringing in a crossword puzzle to the meeting, appreciate that you have a problem, it’s not them, and it’s the reputation of your meetings.
Rethink having everyone “check-in”. This is a good tool but set some parameters and some time limits. If your people are supposed to update the meeting on what they have been working on since the last meeting; set the standard, for example, share something to celebrate, something to vent about, and something they need the group’s help with.
Avoid the “PowerPoint” trap. PowerPoints should highlight the key points of any presentation but should never represent all that is presented. Add anecdotal stories, use real data to emphasize key points, remember everyone can read, use your presentation to bring the key points to life.
Take minutes or summarize your meetings. Send out the summary within a set time after the meeting, I suggest 24-72 hours and make sure everyone gets a copy, including the people who were not present. Too many times important points get lost because no one remembered what was discussed. Rotate the minute taking among senior and junior people. Never take the minutes if you are chairing the meeting, your focus should be running the meeting and watching for/and building comprehension.
Set a maximum time limit for your meeting and try not to run over the time. Respect the time your people give to you and appreciate that many of them may have more than one meeting to attend or other work to be done.
Break up routines, never canvass responses the same way twice. Talk to each associate, ask each person at least one question, use random order instead of going around the table, to keep everyone paying attention.
Encourage participation from all people in the meeting. Work with new people or people who tend to quietly remain in the background, their perspectives and thoughts are important to be shared.
If people have to report on an assignment. Before the meeting, ensure they realize how much time they have, explain what and why it is important they update people, and never accept the comment, “doing my same old same old.” Encourage them to prepare and to share the important things they do.
Encourage people to be ready for the start of the meeting and ask for a notification if they are going to be late. If someone slips in late, quietly thank them for coming and never single them out in front of everyone else.
Don’t allow your agenda to be hijacked. Things that can derail or hijack an agenda can include multiple side conversations between two or more attendees. Attendee texting or emailing is also very distracting.
Attendee ranting, while it is important to share concerns and issues on occasion, one or more people can very easily monopolize the limited time available. When this happens, step in and acknowledge the importance of their points, but turn the conversation back to your agenda while promising to set time aside to deal with their issues at another time.
Equally important to acknowledge is the person who tends to monopolize by going on excessively about their point of view on any particular agenda topic. Diplomatically, try to limit this type of person from dominating the meeting to the point where no one else gets an opportunity to speak.
To recap, RESPECT your people and the time that they give you. Have a PURPOSE for each and every meeting. DON’T BE BORING, encourage their participation and ideas, be interactive, and ask them to repeat back what the key takeaway points are. Your meetings should be a place for ideas to converge not for people to get bored.
In the comments, please add any suggestions or points that I have missed.
Good luck,
Paul