If regular meetings take place in your company, then check if they have any use or not. Many times, we see that there is lack of focus and agenda in such routine meetings. If the attendees are wondering why they are in the meeting, then you need to seriously look at the problems and try to solve them. If you see the following happening during the meeting then it is time to take corrective steps.
Useless Ritual:
Normally organizations meet for discussing weekly or monthly sales and these meetings are not more than a ritual in which attendees do not have much to do. Solution is to organize meeting only when it is necessary and will help to improve strategy the company has. In addition to it, have an agenda ready well in advance and send to all members so that they know about the points, which will be discussed and be prepared for the same.
One-Way Conversation:
Sometime meeting conveners become monotone lecturers and is not effective in teaching anything to others. You should put in the effort to encourage others to speak and exchange their thoughts with others.
Lax Leadership:
In many virtual meetings, time is wasted for everyone to join in and then more time on explaining what has happened in the meeting so far to late comers. You will have to appoint someone as leader of the meeting who is forceful and capable to leave latecomers out of the meeting so that others can continue with the meeting in a proper way.
Discussing Setback and not Strategies:
If you organize meeting to talk about setbacks and not strategies then the meeting will be of no use. Since everyone is present at the meeting, this time should be utilized for developing strategies.
Productive Hours:
Some companies set up meetings during morning, which is the most productive time for any employee. Rather the meetings should be organized during afternoons.
Insipid Environment:
Normally we see employees going to a conference room and joining around a table looking towards the leader. Experts believe such environment does not allow people to share ideas. Instead, everyone should go out in open air, as there is no eye contact, people are able to express their views more freely.
Rigid and Formal:
Most meetings have leaders with hardly any sense of humor. This causes the employees to feel bored during the meeting. Leaders need to mix up conversation with interesting stories or videos.
Meeting Time:
Normally meetings are set for 30 minutes even if it is going to take only about 10 minutes to discuss all the points. Employees should not remain engaged for more time than required. You will have to prepare agenda for the meeting and decide how much time it would take and then strictly follow the set meeting time.
Starting to Think During Meeting:
If an employee tells he is thinking then he has no place in the meeting. All the planning and thinking should be done before the meeting and not during the meeting.
Establish Accountability:
If the meeting reaches a conclusion or decision then someone should be assigned the task to implement it. If it is not clearly assigned to any person then it becomes someone’s task, which literally turns into on one’s responsibility.
Summary:
Meetings have an important place in development of new strategies and if we waste meeting time then it is loss for the company. Business owners should make the effort to understand if there are problems in the meetings being held and take steps to solve them so that meeting time turns into productive time for the organization.
