Why am I not getting the best out of my meetings?

A wise man once said “a meeting is an event where minutes are taken and hours are wasted”. That man was James T. Kirk, and that statement probably held true for him, given that meetings are possibly not the best way for Starfleet captains to defend their ships against enemies. However, for most businesses, meetings are a common feature of the average working day, and there’s no way of getting round them.

With ever-increasing demands on time, money and resources, face-to-face meetings can sometimes be difficult to justify, with many coming to loathe their existence and subsequently underplay their importance. But face-to-face meetings remain a key tool in increasing motivation and productivity, and solving business issues. The power of face-to-face communication in diffusing conflict and achieving things that the written word cannot should not be forgotten.

However, so many meetings fail in achieving what they should do. Here are some of the most common issues and some advice on how to combat them.

“We got side tracked by unrelated issues and didn’t manage to cover everything…”

A well thought out meeting agenda is key to the success of your meetings. It should not be something that is cobbled together by the organiser five minutes before the scheduled start time. The following ideas may help you in developing an effective agenda.

Send out an agenda well in advance of the meeting. Not only will this serve as a reminder to attendees of the meeting itself, but will also help to focus their minds on the topics to be discussed, prompting them to give them some real consideration beforehand.
Clarify which agenda points require discussion, which are updates and which, if any require actions.
Prioritise the agenda items. If there is an issue which absolutely must be discussed, make sure that it is amongst the first to be covered.
Add timings to your agenda to ensure that you can cover all topics, whilst setting expectations around discussion time for your attendees

“We spent too long on one issue and the meeting went on twice as long as planned…”

By setting certain roles for your meetings, you can avoid this by maintaining the structure set out in your agenda.

Chairperson – The chairperson is responsible for leading the meeting in line with the agenda. They should dictate the flow of discussion, involve others where necessary and ensure that all participants are aware of how they are interacting with others.
Minute-taker – As well as being part of the meeting group, this person is responsible for taking all meeting notes. This will avoid others from being distracted by trying to write everything down.
Time-keeper – The time-keeper will support the chair-person by ensuring that the timescales agreed in the agenda are stuck to.

“Certain individuals took over the meeting and others didn’t get a chance to contribute…”

Setting some ground rules or guidelines for behaviour during meetings can be a helpful way of avoiding this problem. It will increase self-awareness amongst attendees and give them accountability for their own behaviour towards others. Things that you might include are:

Stick to all timescales to ensure a prompt start and end to the meeting
Ensure that all conversations relate solely to the current agenda point
Listen before you speak
Seek to understand the other attendee’s point of view before being understood
Avoid having more than one conversation at any one time
Be prepared to remind the group of the ground rules if you find them being broken

The following courses will help you run more effective and productive meetings:

Managing Effective Meetings

Making an Impact in Meetings

Art of Conducting Meetings

Minute Taking