By Fiona Powell

We all moan about attending meetings – but they’re crucial to the communication within a company and the attainment of our business goals.
I’ve attended meetings that have dragged on endlessly, yet nothing has moved forward – no conclusions have been reached, no actions or projects have been assigned. At the other end of the scale I’ve also attended meetings that were upbeat, ‘crisp’, collaborative and hugely motivating – and things happened.

Here are some of the important elements that make meetings successful:

Room set-up
U shaped, or seated around a large table is the best – where everyone can see and hear everyone else and be able to see the whiteboard or screen at the front of the room.

Facilitating
The key to an efficient, productive meeting is good facilitation. A good facilitator will swiftly intervene and get a meandering discussion back on track and wrap up the meeting on time. They know how to ‘park’ secondary ideas or issues and how to revisit them later.
If, as manager or team leader, facilitating isn’t your strength – delegate or outsource this role.

Agenda
The agenda is like the road map for the meeting, it should include a finish time and the points for discussion so participants can prepare beforehand.

Meeting Format

Check in.
Begin the meeting by inviting all attendees to introduce themselves (for a larger gathering) or for a smaller group to report on briefly on a business or personal success they’ve had.
‘Checking in’ allows people to be fully ‘present’. Their attention is focused on the meeting, not with the unanswered email they left at their desk or what they’re going to have for dinner.
Everyone also has a chance to contribute and connect with everyone else. Even the shy ones – I’ve been to meetings where I didn’t hear a peep out of some attendees.
Sharing successes starts the meeting on a positive note which can carry the whole meeting in a similar vein, instead of declining into a mire of negativity.

Reporting
Everyone should have a turn to report in some way on their role.
For a small team it could simply be along the lines of this is what I said I’d do last week, this is what I did do and this is what I’m going to do this week. Being aware of others’ work load eliminates job double-ups or distracting someone with a heavy workload or an impending deadline.
This slot could be an opportunity to report on sales, or production levels or another key performance indicator.
The manager or team leader should also report on the ‘bigger picture’ – where the business is going in relation to long term goals.

Issues
An open forum for any issues or problems faced by team members provides the opportunity for other members to brainstorm ideas or offer their advice.

Training Session
A brief 10 minute slot could be dedicated to upskilling staff such as introducing a new product, how to use the new photocopier and so on.
This slot could be assigned to a different team member each meeting to share a way they’ve discovered to do their job better. A team member could share key points from a workshop or seminar they’ve attended.

Acknowledgements
The end of the meeting is a good opportunity to offer thanks to another team member for something they’ve done, or support they’ve offered and this ends the meeting on a high point.

Minutes
With a small team encourage everyone to take turns recording the minutes, preferably after a training session on how to take effective minutes.
Be clear why you are recording minutes. Is it a way to record allocation of tasks? To record discussions? To record sales figures?

Participating
Prepare for a meeting by reading the agenda. Take along any material, information or reports that you may need to refer to during planned discussions.
Read the minutes from the last meeting to check you have completed all the tasks you were assigned.
At the meeting itself find a system for recording ideas and actions required from the meeting. I use a spiral bound A4 journal with tabbed sections. One section is my ‘to follow up’ section and this is where I jot down all the things I need to do after the meeting. Another section is an ideas section – sometimes during a meeting I have an ‘aha’ moment and want to record the thought to refer back to at another time.

Focused, democratic meetings with structured agendas and clear follow up actions will not only move your business forward but also energise your team.