Business meetings are a necessity we cannot do without, but often times business meetings turn into an enormous time sucker producing no meaningful results. We all know that time is money and when you end a meeting without actually accomplishing anything, you are wasting extremely valuable company time. Apart from that, meaningless meetings often frustrate employees and they start to hate attending such events, which makes producing results even more difficult.
Here are some suggestions that you can take into consideration in order to be able to get the most out of your business meetings:
Goal
You cannot have a meeting without having something in mind that you want to accomplish. Having a meeting just because it's Monday for example, will surely be a waste of time. On the other hand, if you take the time to think about the solution you ultimately want your team to come up with, then you will have something to indicate whether the meeting was successful or not. Do not end a meeting without accomplishing your goal or getting the solution you need.
Plan
Having a certain goal in mind is not enough for a successful meeting. You still have to figure out a way to communicate the problem to your employees or colleagues. Avoid trying to sound smart by using complicated words and get straight to point. Explain things in the easiest possible way and always be willing to answer questions. It is crucial that everyone understands what is to be accomplished so create a good plan for explaining it all and never lose patience if someone doesn't get it the first time.
Stay on topic
Being able to stay on topic often makes the difference between successful and unsuccessful meetings. Keeping everyone focused, however, is often more difficult than you can imagine. Whenever you feel like people are losing sight of what the main topic is, guide them back and stay on track. Keep distractions to a minimum.
Questions
Make sure that you always ask your colleagues or employees the right questions in order to be able to get the right answers. If you feel like someone is beating around the bush, keep pushing to make him / her get straight to the point and give you an answer that will actually help you.
Participation
Assuming you have invited only people who actually need to be in the meeting, you will have to make sure that all of them participate. It is not uncommon for a couple of people to take the word and basically take over the meeting. Try to find a way to get everyone's opinion. This will give people who have great ideas but are shy or afraid to speak up, the opportunity to express what they think.
Deadline
So you have come to the solution you were looking for, but now it needs to be done. Employees won't do everything "as soon as possible" by default so you will need to give them a deadline. This will guarantee you that everyone is on the same page and that the problem is going to be taken care of.
If you would like to make arranging meetings easier, you can think of getting a software solution.
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