Meeting management Archives - Soft Skills

How to Be More Productive at Work – Shorten Meetings by 5 min

by Lei Han

Shorten meetings by 5 min? How can that be more productive? This concept may seem counter-intuitive but I think you will agree with me once you finish reading this post. Have you noticed that our jobs now are full of meetings? My meetings can run from 8am to 4pm with maybe one or two 30 min break in the middle. This leaves very little time to think, plan, or work. ... read more

Coaching Call Recording – How to Lead Effective Meetings

by Lei Han

More than 50% of work hours is filled by meetings. The percentage is even higher if you are more senior in your role and you work for a big organization. Being able to lead effective meetings can have a profound impact on your productivity and on your reputation and the types of relationship you can build. ... read more

5 Tips to Run a Successful Meeting

by Lei Han

Meetings are an essential part of every organization. Yet, at least 50% of meetings today are ineffective. This cartoon on the left may seem silly but is not far from the truth in describing bad meetings. It is essential to your success to learn how to run a successful meeting. Effective meeting management skills will help you successfully share your ideas and thoughts with your audience. It will also help you stand out in your job and build your work reputation.

Whether it is a board meeting, staff meeting, stakeholders meeting, or sales meeting, the purpose of each meeting type is common – sharing information to make key decisions and take action. Here are 5 basic tips on how to run successful meetings and always leave a lasting impression on your audience.

1. Start the Meeting on Time

Be specific and punctual with the meeting timing. Start your meeting within 2 to 3 minutes of start time to be respectful to those who are attending on time. Those who arrive late can catch up on their own. You can help them catch up at the end of the meeting if there is time.

2. Define Meeting Purpose

One of the most important and effective tasks to run a successful meeting is to begin with a description of the purpose of the meeting. By sharing the purpose in the initial five to ten minutes, you may set the foundation, establish rules, and present the terms of reference to define a clear direction for the meeting.

This concept seems simple but is often missed. Many people make the mistake of just sharing status of their work. To an effective meeting purpose, make it specific, achievable, and results in some kind of action during or after the meeting.

3. Encourage Open Discussion ... read more

Leading Effective Meetings – 5 Tips

by Lei Han

There is one thing in common in every corporate america job – meetings. Our days are filled with meetings and probably only half of them are actually useful. We can all work to reduce the number of meetings in our work day and make sure every meeting that we attend or lead is productive.

Here are 5 tips on how to lead effective meetings.

Eliminate unnecessary meetings – People tend to default to meeting for everything but it’s not always necessary. Before you call a meeting, make sure it’s necessary and the issue to be discussed cannot be resolved using some other channel like email. One of the most unproductive type of meeting is a status meeting. It is boring and most people are not listening. Instead you can try to change it into an isssue resolution meeting – focus the meeting on what issues the group needs to collective resolve. If every body’s work is on track without any need for escalation, than a simple email summarizing progress to the team should suffice instead of a meeting.

Also you don’t need to attend every meeting you are invited to. Find out the purpose of the meeting and know why you need to be there before saying yes.

Know your desired meeting outcome – It’s important to know what your key objectives are when leading a meeting. What are the two or three things you want to accomplish with this meeting? e.g., getting everyone up to speed is not always a good objective. Really think about how will everyone including you benefit and be more productive by attending this meeting. Always preset an agenda. It’s amazing how many meetings I have attended where no one set an agenda. Then it’s easy to just talk and accomplish nothing. An agenda can set the direction and get everyone on the same page about why they are there. Include the agenda in the meeting invite so all attendees are on the same page

Limit attendance – more is not always better. Only invite those that need to be there. If you need representation from 5 departments, then ask each department to send one representative. It’s a lot easier for you to facilitate a meeting with 5 other people than 10 people. Don’t just invite everyone that is remotely involved. Know why each person needs to be there and what you hope they can contribute to the meeting. The rest can be optional attendees or not invited at all.

Facilitate and stay on point – Even if you do the above 3 things well, it is still critical to facilitate the topics and help everyone stay on point in the meeting to make it productive. Especially if you are holding a meeting to discuss a controversial topic, you need to know how long to let people talk about their point of view, to keep yourself neutral and listening and also to make sure no one deviates to other topics not on the agenda. If someone raises a point that is out of scope, put it in the “Parking Lot” – a piece of paper you can put up in the beginning of the meeting to let people know that if their points are out of scope, they can be noted in this “Parkeing Lot” and followed up at a different time.

Summarize and agree on next steps – Last but not the least, before you adjourn the meeting, make sure to summarize what you have learned / discussed and lay out 2 or 3 next steps that everyone can agree on. Perhaps there are assigned to-dos for some meeting attendees. Make sure everyone walks away from the meeting understanding what has happened and what they need to do next. You can also follow up in a day or so with a summary email laying out what was agreed, what is still outstanding, and who agreed to do which next steps. This email can go to all the attendees but also copied to other relevant people that didn’t attend the meeting. This way everyone is up to speed and time is saved.