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Do you want your meetings to be more productive?

Meetings are necessary. However, many employees don’t look forward to them as they feel it takes them away from their day. Some meetings tend to drag on or worse, they start to veer off-course.

Accelerating your meeting doesn’t mean rushing through it. Rather, it’s a technique to keep your meetings short but succinct. When your meetings are structured and kept within schedule, you’re more likely to keep your employee’s attention and interest.

Here’s how to make your meetings more effective by accelerating your meetings:

Solicit Agenda Items From Everyone

Having an agenda is essential to a productive meeting. Create a draft and circulate it to your people. Have them rate what the most important topics are and make suggestions for ones that you may have missed or wasn’t aware was an issue that needed attention.

Clarify the Purpose of Each Topic

Make it clear when a topic is to be discussed by you or someone else and if the subject is on the agenda because it requires a decision. When people know the difference, they’ll know when their opinions need to be heard during a topic or if they should wait until the meeting wrap-up.

Set Time Limits for Each Topic

To keep your pace steady and momentum going, each topic should be discussed within a specific amount of time. If the discussion proves that the topic needs to be explored further, note it to be a topic of discussion for another meeting in the near future. When this happens, you may need to only involve those concerned, and the others will get minutes of that meeting via email.

Manage the Content and Lead the Process

As the leader, ensure that you stay on topic and have heard from everyone who is relevant. You are responsible for how productive the meeting will be. Don’t get sidetracked or allow a particular item go over its allotted time. It’s also your job to close each topic, summarize, ask if everyone has understood the discussion, and move on to the next item on the agenda.

Resolve Conflict

Be the first to leave emotions at the door and to not take anything too personally. As the leader, it is also your responsibility to invite different viewpoints to be heard and mediate in the event of conflict.

Keep a Record of Decisions and Actions

As the meeting progress, decisions will be made, and specific actions will need to be taken to carry them out. By keeping action minutes, you’ll have a record of who is accountable for what. Circulate the minutes of the meeting to everyone involved.

After the meeting, take the time to evaluate if it was efficient and productive. Ask the opinions of your team on how they feel the meeting went and if it could have been better. Was the pace so quick that people did not have the chance the catch up before moving on to the next topic? What can be done to improve the process? Be open to feedback.

Do you feel that you need more tips on how to lead a meeting more effectively? I believe I can help you. We can help you develop the power of results-oriented leadership. Let’s connect: https://meetme.so/GregNichvalodoff

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CONTACT ME

Inscape Consulting Group
Greg Nichvalodoff, BSc. BM (Honors), MBA, PCC, CMC
Office: 604.943.0800
Mobile: 604.831.4734
greg@inscapeconsulting.com