Meetings are the most important part of an organization. It is a necessary key feature to boost productivity and efficiency. When everyone knows what should be done then it will be easy to complete.
In the real world, employees feel stuck in unproductive meetings, for days and weeks. Minimum a person spends 14 to 18 hours in meeting a week. Half of the attendees of the meeting will agree that those are a waste of time and work.
If the meeting is not planned properly then it is not only a waste of time and work but also a waste of money as well. A recent study of time management and budgeting found that the weekly staff meeting of an organization will cost $15M a year.
Indeed, you can’t eliminate the meetings. Therefore, you need to make them more useful and efficient. In this way, you can save time and money, here are a few tips and tricks for effective meetings.
Have a Clear Objective
Are the meetings held in your organization needed for gathering information, collecting new ideas, or making decisions? Or it’s a combination of the above?
If you are not sure what you wanna achieve then it’s difficult to achieve it. One factor responsible for a successful meeting is having a clear goal and a concrete agenda.
We should consider that meetings are not social gatherings which we can conduct just for fun. Meetings should be goal-oriented, without purpose there should be no meeting.
Be Ready
Management should be ready for every meeting beforehand. Before every meeting management should provide the participants its agenda. The agenda of the meeting should have
- Who will address each topic
- The time of the meeting
- The objective of the meeting
- Topics to be covered
- Other important information participants need to know
Invite Few at a Time
Before holding a meeting prepare a list and ask yourself who needs to be there. Most of the time an email can work with a summary.
If you can remove half of the unnecessary attendees from the meeting then you can save half of the company time.
The main purpose of the meeting is to take decisions despite just sharing information. If the discussed topic is not relevant to half of the attendees then it’s a waste for them they will simply feel it is a waste of time.
Leave Space for Creativity
The knowledge and experience of your employees are valuable resources. And, resources shouldn’t be left untapped. Short meetings are good but when they are stripped down from discussion and idea generation. These are sufficient because they can enhance creativity and bring energy.
Some creativity of your employees can make the meetings interesting and attendees will participate more. This will promote active listening, and is more beneficial than multitasking also.
Don’t Forget the Q&A
Meetings are the best place to engage employees. All leaders claim to have an open-door policy in the organization. But managers need to manage that participants are not taking advantage of it.
For that, managers should engage the attendees through meetings, and for this Q&A session is often pushed to the end of the meeting. Leaving a couple of minutes for each topic and a final Q&A.
Ask These Questions Before Scheduling a Meeting;
- Is the meeting required
- Who needs to be there
- What will be the schedule or agenda
