If You Don’t Know the Purpose of Your Meeting, You Are Prohibited From Starting
Updated: Jun 17, 2021
We've gone WAY overboard on meetings over the past year because it's so easy to set up and accept virtual meetings.
So, let's take a breath and rethink what we're doing. First, make sure you even need a meeting, then read on for ways to get the most out of your time:
Plan in Advance: Take time to identify the purpose, content and results.
Communicate the Goal: Start the meeting with a clear goal, and ensure the important topics are discussed before the meeting is over. Communicate the meeting process and the time allocated for the meeting.
Start and End on Time: And why does every meeting have to be an hour? If you have 20 minutes of content, block 30 minutes and end early.
Take Action: Recap who's doing what at the end of the meeting. Be clear and set deadlines for getting action items done.
Practice these strategies the next time you’re leading a meeting:
It’s time to move onto another subject: "We have 20 minutes left and two other items. Let’s conclude this topic to ensure we have time for the remaining items."
You need to get other opinions: "You make a very compelling argument. Let's make sure others have a chance to share their views before we agree on this plan of action."
Someone goes on a tangent: “Let’s get back to the agenda so we can end on time.”
Something needs more investigation: “What you’re saying is important. Let’s schedule time off-line to take a deeper dive and report back to this group.”
You need agreement on something: "Before we go, do we all agree on the next steps that we've created?"
You are running out of time: "It sounds like our discussion will take longer than the 5 minutes we have left. Given that, let's spend this time generating a list of issues for our next meeting."
