Make Your Meetings Better!
Are you meeting for meeting sake? Time is one of our most precious commodities, especially now when we are juggling so many things, including many of us working from home, and it can be a valuable competitive edge for a company if you are thoughtful and purposeful in how you do more with less each day.
Spending less time in meetings means more time focused on your customers, innovating, inventing, and actually doing the work to deliver on your personal and professional goals (and right now, any K-12 homeschooling priorities!).
I believe that with some planning and practice that all meetings can be a good use of time and help you and your company be successful, and, in some cases, give you a competitive advantage. By asking the right questions and following consistent guidelines, you will set yourself and your company up for success.
Meeting Guidelines
- Approach colleagues with respect in every situation – including respectful of their time.
- ALWAYS have an agenda and desired outcome clearly stated prior to the meeting so everyone understands the ‘why’ before they attend.
- Have an assigned note taker, decide on actions, assign owners and due dates and create accountability. If you own, ensure it gets done.
- Leverage technology when appropriate and meet in person when possible. If you don’t need a meeting, do a quick call/email instead. Do you have Teams? That is a great tool for a quick note or call.
- If you are global, be considerate of ALL time zones and meet at rotating times of the day for recurring meetings so that one region isn’t always meeting in evening hours.
Shorten your meetings
Scheduling meetings for 30 or 60 minutes is a thing of the past. Make your meetings 20/25 or 40/45 minutes long. This makes time for small breaks in-between meetings for bio breaks and returning important messages. This also makes more space for us to gather our thoughts throughout the day, rather than feeling like a pinball, bouncing from one meeting to the next!
Start on Time, End on Time
We are all adults and need to manage our time accordingly. Make sure you arrive to your commitments on time, if you are a host, start and end all meetings on time. If you are late, catch up with someone after the meeting about what you missed instead of hijacking the meeting. If you are running late, send a note as soon as possible.
Be Ready for the Meeting
Typically, meetings are to get things done or make a path forward. If you aren’t sure why you have been invited, get clarity before the meeting. If there is anything you need to know/understand before the meeting – be responsible to do that on your own. If you are accountable for a portion of the meeting, come prepared. Preparation = Success. Schedule your own prep time on your calendar, if needed.
Put Down the Device
Pay attention during the meeting. Put down your phone, iPad, laptop, social media, etc. or you are missing opportunities to actively listen and participate. Don’t make people repeat things because you are doodling. Only use your devices to take notes or present content and step out of the meeting if needed.
If Possible, Schedule When Open
Don’t waste time and emails asking if someone is available if you don’t have to. You can typically look at availability yourself if you work in the same company/network to find the best available time. When you do have access to scheduling, make sure you check if someone is available before randomly scheduling a time. And, ensure that your calendar is up to date with all commitments, so you don’t get double booked. Be aware of the various time zones and don’t schedule something at midnight for a meeting participant.
Should I Forward?
If you think others need to be included in the meeting, talk to the meeting owner first before you forward to additional attendees.
Follow Up, Follow Through
Make sure you stick to the agenda and table topics not relevant to the agenda (parking lot list!). Ensure follow up on those items and assign next steps for that list during the meeting before you wrap up.
Meeting owners/note takers should send a summary of action items that include who is responsible for each item and due dates to ensure accountability and expectation management.
Present and Active – Up Front and Honest
It is important to be fully present and active during the meeting. Hopefully you have a purpose for being in the meeting, ensure that you speak up when needed, share ideas and information and be accountable when you are responsible for something. No ‘meetings after the meeting’, fully engage during the meeting, even when there is disagreement, because diverse opinions and points of view lead to better decisions. During the meeting decide and move on toward a common goal, even if your idea was not the one selected, once a decision is made, move forward together.
Meeting Days/Times
Understanding the culture of your organization or the people you are working with is very important. For some that means no meetings before 10 am in their time zone, for some that means no meetings after 1 pm on Friday in their time zone. Whatever it is, be sure you know and understand those, often unwritten, rules.
On Zoom, Teams, FaceTime, etc. all the time now? Here are some additional things to think about in our ‘work from wherever’ status right now.
Leader of the Meeting Needs to Lead
Take attendance, if needed, as soon as the meeting starts. When you say things like, “who is here?” people talk over each other and it takes forever! Mute people, if needed, and have people raise their hand to talk to avoid overtalking and having people repeat themselves over and over and over again! As the leader, call on people to talk and manage the muting from your platform, if possible. It’s also helpful to have people state their name before speaking to help everyone follow along. I would even recommend this for the friends/family group video calls you are having now to help everyone hear one another and get a turn to speak. If your family is anything like mine, it’s hard enough to get a word in when we are together, much less on a video call!
Check Access
Make sure you are familiar with a platform when you receive a new meeting invite. I have seen several over the past few weeks that I had never heard of and had to download prior to my meeting. Do this with enough time so you are not late to the meeting start time.
Know Your Tech
Understand the platform you are using, how to turn the camera on/off on your equipment, how to unmute/mute your speakers and microphone and what is required by the meeting organizer (some are requiring the video be on/off right now). I recently learned that in a Zoom meeting the connections work better when you turn off your video and screen sharing.
No one wants to hear your background noise unnecessarily and you don’t want people to hear any chaos you may have going on at home right now either. Although, I have noticed people are a LOT more accepting of these things given the situation we are in right now.
Also, know what happens if you press hold, is there music that plays for the rest of the call while you put people on hold ‘real quick’ – so disruptive! Don’t be that person!
If you think this is helpful, let me know, and take a look at my other blog posts and services on my website, www.cassiebrownHRconsulting.com or on my company LinkedIn page, www.dhirubhai.net/company/cassie-brown-hr-consulting.com. Anything you would add to the recommended guidelines?
Here are my favorite YouTube videos on how conference calls actually go, I think we can all relate, especially now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=75&v=DYu_bGbZiiQ