Greetings!
Many of us dread meetings and in reality meetings are the most important vehiclels for communication. Making each meeting effective is the real challenge.
Here are some characteristics of negative meetings....* - 83% of meeting attendees drift from subject
- 77% are poorly prepared
- 68% lack careful listening
- 60% are related to length
- 51% lack participation
Meetings are costly. Consider the rate of pay of each participant multiplied by the time spent in the meeting. If you take four people at $50.00 per hour for a three hour meeting, the cost for the meeting is $600.00!! Since many hours are spent in meetings by high paid professionals, this becomes a significant number. (*According to "How to run an effective meeting" Harvard Business Review; A Jay) |
Some tips on running an effective meeting
- Seek full paritcipation
- Each meeting should have a clear purpose with realistic content to be covered in the time allocated for the meeting
- Publish the agenda ahead of time and be sure each item is addressed
- Assign attendees with some areas of responsibility to handle parts of the agenda
- Be sure the right people are at the meetings
- Report summaries and progess of meetings, have a recorder or secretary present to handle the notetaking
- Leader must be able to facilitate effectively, keep al on topic, ensure agenda times is being followed
- In the absence of the leader being comfortable as faclitator, hire one!
- Beginning for meeting should contain non controversial announcments and cover such things as upcoming events
- Middle of meeting should be reserved for the hardest items. This way those that come late or those that have to leave early, are present for this information
- End of meeting should cover the "easiest" item and end on a positive note
The Facilitator must ensure that there is balanced participation. There are inevitably some people that talk more than others at meetings, this needs to be addressed to allow for others to speak.
After the meeting, be sure that the minutes are written up and distributed promptly, covering areas of responsilbilities for action items. |
| Additional thoughts....
- Don't read to the group, they can read what has been sent to them ahead of the meeting and also what is in front of them.
- Use this time for processing the content together using input from individual areas of expertise.
- Ensure fulll understanding.
- Be sure everyone contributes, they were invited for a reason, utilize their expertise in the manner you hoped to when inviting them. Where information is not relevant to a particular person, excuse them from the meeting.
- In order to get the most out of everyone, be sure they all understand their responsiblities. The more a person feels responsible for content, the more prepared and engaged they will be.
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