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As a conductor of a meeting, you must keep in mind that any meeting consumes time and energy of multiple people – people whose time is as valuable or perhaps more valuable than yours! In reality, you may observe that this aspect gets woefully ignored and many executives tend to utilize meetings to kill time. This tendency must never be emulated.
Here are some tips for conducting effective and productive meetings:
BE CLEAR ABOUT THE AGENDA. Everyone attending a meeting should be clear about the agenda of the meeting. Members should come to the meeting well-prepared beforehand, and the meeting should not be allowed to drift to free-wheeling discussions on unrelated topics.
INVOLVE ONLY THOSE WHO ARE CONCERNED. Many professional managers take pride in being the chair-person of the meeting attended by all irrespective of whether the attendants have something to contribute or otherwise – in other words, conducting a meeting more as a ritual for the pride of doing it.
For example, in a meeting to discuss the frequent breakdown of a critical machine and the consequential loss of production, the role of a Marketing Executive will be nil. But he may have been asked to attend it as a “ritual”. Such practices are to be abhorred.
RELIEVE EARLY THOSE WHO HAVE CONTRIBUTED. In a meeting with multiple agenda, perhaps some of the participants have very little to say or contribute and they have already said it. It will be a criminal waste of their time to retain them till the end of the meeting; they will be sitting there uselessly, yawning and squirming in their seats or scribbling your caricature in their writing pads! It is in the best interest of all that those who have contributed already in the meeting are allowed to leave early.
BE FOCUSED. Go prepared with a check-list of matters to be discussed in the meeting. Smart executives on the receiving end (who are likely to face the wrath from fellow members in the meeting on account of their omissions and commissions) have the knack of diverting the focus of the meetings to non-issues; they will smartly try to steer away the discussions to irrelevant issues in order to wriggle out of their predicaments. You must be constantly watchful of such persons; remain in control to prevent such diversionary tactics and steer the focus the discussions to subjects in the agenda.
MEETINGS ARE NOT JUST FOR MONOLOGUES. Occasionally, meetings are conducted for making announcements only (policy announcements, announcements about promotions, new product launch, felicitation to a retiring staff member, etc). Other than such cases, if you are conducting a meeting just for the love of “hearing your own voice”, just to make your sermons and expect others to listen, nod and leave, the meeting hardly serves any purpose. A meeting should be ideally for open discussions. Every member in a meeting should have the opportunity to express himself unreservedly. Listening and talking should be roughly equal.
ENSURE EVERYBODY CONTRIBUTES. This is particularly important in the case of brainstorming sessions. Any meeting will comprise of a few overtly talkative persons, some who have the capacity to express themselves well and some who are reserved, shy to talk, having limitations in verbal expressiveness. Many times, shy and reserved persons will have more creativity and better ideas than those who have the capacity of stronger vocal chords. This is where your capacity as the organizer of an effective meeting is put to test. You have to cajole and encourage the shy and reserved persons to come out of their shells and contribute their might well, and by keeping a check on the over-talkative persons.
WHO-WHAT-WHEN. Whether it is problem-solving or allocating new tasks, you should clearly communicate in the meeting on WHO should do WHAT within what TIME FRAME without ambiguity. All the concerned members must be clear of their roles and responsibilities and have their concurrence.
SUMMERIZE AND MAKE THEM COMMITTED. If a meeting is a routine and ongoing one (daily production meetings, weekly sales meetings etc), start off with the gist of points concluded in the last meeting and check to see compliance and deviations.
Every member who has to do his role of follow-up action after the meeting is over must be asked to jot down what he has committed to do, and what he ought to do along with the time frame in his note pad. You must also jot down in your own way these commitments in your note pad, which will serve you as the basis for follow-up. This is a simpler alternative to making “official minutes”.
At the end of the present meeting, summarize the key points discussed and agreed before dispersing.
MAKE OFFICAL MINUTES WHERE IT IS A MUST. In very crucial meetings, it will be necessary to make written official minutes that record the gist of discussions and outline the action plan covering “who-what-when”. Get it signed by all the concerned members. Here are some of the possible conditions that make minutes essential:
- The summary of discussions is to be sent to higher-ups for further action.
- The meeting is between a customer and a supplier and it covers action plans related to a tender; finalization of Order; problems in sales and service; payment and delivery commitments; and trials and quality issues, etc.
- The meeting was a brainstorming session and all the ideas and points of view generated are to be made available in an organized way.
BE TIME-CONSCIOUS. Start the meeting in time and conclude it in time. Do not stretch the meeting by eating away the lunch time. Some executives conduct meetings intentionally beyond office hours, which is blatantly an undesirable practice.
Managerial effectiveness many times get reflected in the effectiveness of the meetings one conducts. Meetings should never be used as a time-pass by a manager to camouflage his idle time. If a meeting with multiple persons can effectively be avoided by any other means of efficient communication, it would definitely be a more worthwhile effort on the part of the manager towards effective time management.
C.V.Rajan is a self-employed professional Mechanical Design Engineer, living in Chennai (India) and is an avid reader and writer. He is a spiritually inclined person and loves writing on a range of subjects like Hinduism, Spirituality, Peaceful living, Home-business, Management and Healthy living. He is also a short story writer.
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