If you’re like me, then you must always wonder why meetings take too long—no one even cares if you barely understand what anyone’s talking about. In fact, some meetings get so boring that you start daydreaming about your next vacation, your next nap, or anything else. This is why conveners of meetings should have some fall-back tricks to ensure every participant is totally on board.
Here, my top 5 tips to running the conference room like a genius.
Outline a Purpose
As a convener or facilitator who desires to run an effective meeting, you need to begin with a purpose. The opening ten minutes in any meeting are the most important and sets the foundation, reference, and parameters and what it sets to accomplish.
Be both specific with the timing of the meeting, announce the duration and have your agenda restate these.
Encourage Open Discussions
Ensure every participant makes a contribution, and not just the assertive but those who are more reluctant and shy to speak up. Whatever you do, remember that leaders don’t dominate. You may have the natural tendency to want to speak 50 percent of the entire meeting duration. But try to steer away from this and avoid hogging the discussion.
Push for Closure
Pick a subject or item on your agenda, discuss it thoroughly. However, be sure to always press for closure on what has been decided and who’s going to do what and by when. The trick to an effective meeting is in keeping on track on each subject and pressing for closure.
Summarize the Action Points
At the end of each discussion, always summarize what was discussed at the end of the meeting. Summarize not just the action schedules, but the implementation plan. Then you can have every participant in the meeting agree or disagree on what has been decided.
This way, no one can claim they are not aware of what they were supposed to do, because there would a group of witnesses. So getting people to commit publicly is a very powerful tool of meeting management psychologically.
Keep a Record
Always ensure that the minutes from a meeting are distributed to the appropriate persons within 24 hours. They can then ask questions and give feedbacks, if necessary. If there are no questions this, it means they’ve accepted the record of the meeting as distributed.
This is a final step is essential to conducting a productive meeting and improving your management skills.
Did you find these tips helpful? Feel free to share your thoughts below!