Why meetings matter

What happens during the meeting stays in the meeting. At one operation Tyler worked with, the manager found out that some meeting participants who thought they didn't get heard, or didn't like a decision that had been made, would go back to their units griping to the other employees and creating a negative atmosphere.

Don't take it out and use the discussion to grind an ax," says Tyler. In order to keep team meetings focused, positive and short, you should first create an agenda. Review daily milk production report.

Review modified operating statement. Review budget projections versus actual performance each month. Monthly veterinarian report. Monthly nutritionist report.

Identify upcoming events and expenditures. Schedule vacation time and other time off. Take action: set priorities and assign responsibility. To have effective team meetings, you first need to set some ground rules. Only allow one person to speak at a time. Make requests rather than demands of others. Be on time.

Stay focused on the topic at hand. Effective meetings have high participation, good energy, constructive collaboration, and meaningful conversations. In short, effective meetings are those which tap into the wisdom, expertise, and energy of the group. Effective meetings are interactive and valuable to both the meeting leader and the meeting attendees. Leading effective meetings— meetings that matter —is part science and part art.

The science is in taking care of the essential elements that go into the meeting structure. The art is in the way we think about designing our meetings and promoting positive engagement of participants. The following nine tools and techniques are essential building blocks that will help you lead meetings that get results — meetings that are positive, engaging, and efficient. Your next meeting participants will thank you! Most people begin planning their meetings by creating an agenda; this is a serious mistake.

The first step should always be defining the purpose of the meeting. Everything else follows the purpose. Ask yourself:. The key word here is design. Think of meetings as a series of conversations in which the participants must engage in order to accomplish the purpose.

Be creative about how you conduct the conversations. There are many tools and techniques you can use to tap into the wisdom of your participants—all your participants, not just the most vocal ones. Specific tools and techniques are readily available online. Here are a few to get you started:. Finally, create a meeting timeline based on the conversations you intend to facilitate. Keep your meeting tight, focused, and as short and as efficient as possible. Not having the right people in the room is one of the top ten complaints people have about wasted meetings.

Many organizations have a bad habit of including everybody and their sister on meeting invites. This just wastes time and dilutes engagement. Go back to the purpose of the meeting. Some companies are declaring meeting-free days, usually Fridays. Others are making certain hours of the day off — limits for meetings.

They can be an important part of a process of coming up with innovative solutions to problems and new and better ways of doing things. Tom Krattenmaker is a freelance writer and director of news and information at Swarthmore College.

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How is it that our most primal instinct, to find strength in the communal gathering of people, has devolved into a construct so universally despised? What goes wrong?

Most meetings are:. Think about the last meeting you enjoyed. What stands out about it? Would you know how to replicate that experience? Well-run meetings have a clear purpose. Purpose drives the structure, defines the desired outcome, and creates an objective measure of success so that participants know what they have achieved. Identifying the purpose also clarifies who should, and who should not , be in the room. A meeting without a defined purpose is like embarking on a road trip without a map or destination.

These are:.