Three Ways To Make Your Next Meeting A Smash Success

According to 2023 statistics, there were over 55 million meetings each week in the United States alone, and 71% of those meetings were designated as unproductive. That unproductivity causes an estimated $37 billion in costs each year!

There are many valid reasons why people dread going to meetings. Here are some of our favorites:

While you can’t control all of the meetings that you attend (we’ll save that topic for another blog post), you definitely CAN control your own meetings.

So how do you ensure that your meetings won’t fall into the 71% unproductive category? Follow these three simple steps:

STEP ONE: Go Beyond The Agenda To Nail Your Meeting Organization/Purpose

We know that most meetings don’t have a specific agenda prepared in advance. While that should be a specific requirement, the meetings that work best think well beyond a simple agenda for the discussion. They should include the following:

1. Goal for the Meeting – This allows people invited to the meeting to understand in advance what is being discussed — and more importantly — why the topic is being discussed.
2. Output(s) for the Meeting – When the meeting is over, what is the expected outcome for the group? This is important to keep everyone on track during the meeting.
3. Supporting Agenda (With Focus on Application, Not Detail) – We’ve seen too many meetings where there is an agenda with 10 random line items that scares people away before the meeting even starts.
   • TIP: Our advice is to focus on a few key bullets that attendees can see will support the Goal and Output pieces above. As long as you connect those dots, you are in good shape.

STEP TWO: Carefully Consider Your Attendee List And Think About Their Perspective

It is too easy (and too common) for meeting organizers to be lazy and say “I’ll include this whole team or department”. The net result is that people end up attending the meeting and realize that the content has no relevance to them. It takes a small amount of extra time to carefully think through who should be involved in the meeting and why. Here’s what we recommend:

• In the meeting invite, in addition to your goal/output and any agenda information, explain why you are inviting the people you include and their role in the discussion.
  • TIP: If you have a key subject matter expert or stakeholder that is a must, take the time to send them a separate email that explains the importance of their attendance.
• When you start your meeting, revisit “the why” component of people being invited, and spend a couple of minutes making sure that everyone on the call knows their voice is important, and that they have a relevant seat at the table. This will help pull people in and keep them focused.

STEP THREE: Ditch The One-Way Monologue

We get it — it is your meeting and an opportunity for you to shine! However, don’t fall into the pitfall of spending the whole meeting monopolizing the conversation. That’s a direct path to disengagement and boredom for your participants. Yes, you should spend time facilitating and leading the meeting and steering the conversation/participants in the right direction, but take the time to also do this:

• Craft specific questions to ask the group as a whole or specific participants during the meeting. These questions should be created in advance and handy for your reference during the meeting.
  • TIP: You should plan for at least one question for every 10 minutes of meeting time.
• Capture decisions made in the meeting and share them in real time for consensus. Too often, decisions are verbally and vaguely made in a meeting only to be questioned days or weeks later.
  • TIP: Take the time to call out a decision when it is made and pause long enough to share that with the participants to make sure everyone is hearing the same thing. This is another chance to encourage participation and get other voices talking.

BONUS POINTS

If you want to be a memorable and organized leader, make sure that someone (either you or someone designated) is taking notes during the session and send an email out within 24 hours of the meeting. This is your chance to put a “bow” on your successful meeting and keep the momentum going. The email should include:

• A reminder of the goal/outcome
• Key topics discussed
• Decisions made
• Upcoming action items with owners and timing

Our advice is to take some or all of these ideas and apply them to meetings you have coming up in the next few weeks. We’d love to hear your success stories of applying them!