12 Tips for Better Business Meetings

Busi­ness meet­ings can fos­ter col­lab­o­ra­tion, inno­va­tion and action — yet most employ­ees gasp with frus­tra­tion at the thought of anoth­er meeting.

Stop encour­ag­ing meet­ing medi­oc­rity and, instead, use every meet­ing to make things hap­pen with these tips:

1. Ask your­self, does this meet­ing real­ly need to happen?
2. Select par­tic­i­pants wise­ly – does every­one real­ly need to be in the meeting?
3. Pro­vide an agen­da to par­tic­i­pants in advance.
4. Clear­ly deter­mine and com­mu­ni­cate the intend­ed meet­ing out­comes so that par­tic­i­pants under­stand the pur­pose and ben­e­fits of meeting.
5. If atten­dees are required to review infor­ma­tion in advance, send it to them pri­or to the meet­ing; do not waste time review­ing doc­u­ments dur­ing the meeting.
6. Estab­lish stan­dard meet­ing eti­quette that is used con­sis­tent­ly. For exam­ple, start and end on time and give every­one the oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­tribute to the discussion.
7. Instill an action-dri­ven cul­ture even dur­ing meetings.
8. Doc­u­ment assigned actions and the per­son or team respon­si­ble for each action; every­one needs to leave with mean­ing­ful things to accomplish.
9. Com­mu­ni­cate when actions must be com­plet­ed; fol­low up on each action to ensure completion.
10. Have some­one take notes – ide­al­ly a sup­port per­son so the CEO or exec­u­tive team can think rather than write or type.
11. Encour­age col­lab­o­ra­tion but stay focused, oth­er­wise meet­ings will always take up more time than allotted.
12. Recap actions at the end and then send a sum­ma­ry to every­one with­in half an hour.