No more useless team meetings: how to make them truly effective

For many regular employees, team meetings often mean boredom and futility that keeps them from doing their proper job. Unfortunately, this is often really the case. This article shows how a manager can prepare and lead meetings so that they are genuinely effective.

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The following tips were published by Forbes.

Invite only those employees who genuinely need to be at the meeting

As we all probably know from our own experience, many managers tend to invite people to meetings who in fact do not need to be there. They are often invited only to add something to the topic if required, but otherwise the meeting does not concern them at all. In this case, however, it would be more logical to write down the points that need attention and ask the given person about them later, or invite them only to the necessary part of the meeting. Teach your staff to invite only the most crucial attendees to meetings and respect their colleagues' time.

Do not let the meeting overrun, watch the time and stick to your plan

Every meeting, even the smallest or a seemingly unimportant one, must have a clear schedule set. It is necessary the organiser set up the topics to be covered, including their time schedule. The time then needs to be checked regularly during the meeting to avoid any overruns, which might again badly influence the work and time schedule of the individual employees who are supposed to be doing something else by that time. Go through all the points you planned, and if there is insufficient time, schedule another meeting.

At the end, state what each person should be doing next

Every meeting should yield a list of action steps for the individual attendees. It is quite frustrating if a meetings has no specific result and just wastes employees' time without leaving them any the wiser. Write down a clear list of things to be done, agree with all the attendees on these (ideally you should agree on the points at the meeting itself and send them the minutes later), establish deadlines and then determine how you will check if these tasks have been successfully completed.

 

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Article source Forbes.com - prestigious American business magazine and website
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