Everyone knows the feeling when a work meeting has gone off the rails and turned into chaos or drifted off into nervous silence. Legs under the tables start shaking. Idle fingers start twirling pens or – worse – tapping them on tables. And when the smartphones start coming out of hiding, you know the battle is lost.
But a meeting is like a microcosm of the whole workday, and to justify gathering employees together and taking them away from perhaps more immediate individual concerns, it should contain the most productive communication of the day. Here are six ways for managers to streamline the process.
1) Check yourself on whether a meeting is even necessary. A meeting should be a premium occurrence, not a daily drag on productivity. One well-honed and focused meeting is as effective as a dozen that wander. Employees should expect each meeting they attend to be the scene of important decision making or the dissemination of essential info not better delivered via email or a quick phone call.
2) Time is of the essence.Attention spans and patience limits are short, and attendees of regularly rambling meetings have a near-supernatural sense to pinpoint the exact moment when they can tune out to no serious detriment on their part. So keep a meeting tight and focused and lean. And don’t reward the late arrivers by discussing the less important stuff first. Instead, keep important items up top, and let it be known that late-comers will miss the most pressing material.
3) Pre-circulate a meeting agenda. An agenda is essential for keeping a meeting on the rails, and for letting attendees know the shape the meeting will take. When employees see the meeting’s movements broken down in clean terms on paper, it reassures all that time isn’t being wasted and that the discussion has a destination. Remember though that workplaces are busy, so there will be those who don’t see the agenda in time or would prefer to wing it. Make it their loss.
Survey: Nearly 40% of Workers Say Their Meetings Are ‘Average’
4) Use a round table when you can. There’s a reason the Arthurian myth has persisted so long: King Arthur was a truly progressive workplace manager. Case in point, he knew that seating arrangements held meanings both subliminal and obvious, and that it was easy when necessary to underline the heavy-hitters in the room (and intimidate the less powerful) by giving them the biggest, tallest chairs. But a round table forces everyone to sit on a level plane, with nobody given a visual cue as top dog. There will still be cases where a rectangular table and power positions are necessary, but for a meeting where the free exchange of ideas is paramount, a round table can help immeasurably.
5) Make sure everyone attending has a reason to be there. This is a great way to make everyone feel their importance in a concrete way. Some employees will tend towards keeping silent if they feel that their input won’t be heard or assessed. If they know why they are there, and that only they can offer that necessary input, they’ll be encouraged to participate.
6) Debrief and follow up. Make sure your meetings conclude crisply, with a clear sense of what needs to happen next and who needs to do it. Have the meeting leader both summarize the essential points cleanly and ensure that each attendee going forward knows what is immediately expected of them. A separate meeting attendee can be assigned follow-up detail, to ensure that closure is arrived at by all parties in the days following.
