To meet or not to meet… That is the question

Make your meetings more productive with these practical tips.

By Deon Smit

Meetings are an essential part of the business environment that all employees are required to navigate no matter what the size of the organisation. Meetings, as a task, seem to have no standard practices that govern the proper etiquette. After some investigation, it has been found that this lack is a hindrance across many organisations. The question is, how to break out of this mould and start to be more effective in the way business meetings are conducted.

The starting point would be why meeting participants disengage, and below are a few of these reasons:

• The meeting does not really apply them;
• Participants did not properly prepare for the meeting;
• They do not understand the reason for attending;
• They feel their time is being wasted as nothing has been decided;
• Only one person is doing all the talking in the meeting; and
• The meeting is a griping session rather than having productive outcomes.

Meetings should be or have…

The following are some simple meeting etiquette guidelines that have been identified on how meetings could rather be approached.

An agenda Understanding the purpose of the meeting and the required outcomes. There is nothing worse stepping out of a meeting that had no point, no decisions being made or inappropriately pitched. Know your goal and clarify expectations upfront. This is such a basic point but crucial for a meeting to be effective.

A designated meeting chairman/facilitator Ensure that the meeting is focused and the identified agenda points are covered as a minimum. The chairman needs to set a positive tone, celebrate success, interrupt flow to keep focus and act as the guide to meet desired outcomes.

Allocation of the correct amount of time and venue Ensure you determine the amount of time it would require to engage with participants and to cover the content. It can be very frustrating running out of time and not having met the meeting objectives. It is important to end a meeting when it is supposed to end. If you have not allocated the correct amount of time, starting late or digressing off the topic has a knock-on effect on other meetings. Always aim to have the meeting completed in a portion of the time allocated. Please respect others’ time and arrive on time for scheduled meetings.

Meeting preparation This includes pre-reading, reports, presentations and so forth. Meetings could be run more efficiently if attendees had foresight on the contents of the meeting that supports the agenda.

Follow up email to be distributed to non-decision makers Meetings should be followed up with action points and confirmation of decisions as well as the additional inclusion of employees that require the information to ensure transparency. They should not be included in a meeting where it is purely information sharing for them.

Collaboration Embrace collaboration and make it a team effort when brainstorming. Never say “no”, as many times, the great ideas end up being an average idea that was built on and built on and built on. Give the average ideas a chance. Make it user-friendly and don’t leave out the fun.

Meetings should not ….

Include seat warmers Ensure you have only the people that are essential to making the decision or those that will be directly impacted. If you are a seat warmer in a meeting, it is a frustrating position to be in.

Exclude subject matter experts A key component to make sure that decisions are made is to include the business subject matter experts should questions arise in a meeting. Due to a lack of information or expertise further consultation will be required after the meeting. Additional meetings will have to be scheduled to make the decision that was previously undecided.

Allow mobile phones or non-presenter laptops The meeting organiser has booked the time because they require your input or expertise. To have effective meetings mobile phones and laptops should not be allowed to be accessed during the meeting. The decent thing would be to provide the full attention to the person that has arranged the meeting or excuse yourself in case of an emergency.

Be a social or relationship trust builder If a meeting is used to build relationships, schedule the appropriate time for it after the meeting officially concluded allowing other members in the meeting to leave to attend to other pressing matters. Rather use cross-functional socials and networking opportunities to interact on this level.

Creative ways to address the issue

Have standing meetings Remove all the chairs. Sitting results in meetings taking longer that is required. Employees sit the whole day and this provides a good break from the normal routine. It is great for getting out-of-the-box thinking going as you’re out of the normal comfort zone.

Use creative meeting spaces This is easy to do and produces some stimulus for ideas and innovation – think of innovative seating arrangements. Ensure that people can’t get too comfortable and break certain boardroom power games that occur.

Eliminate drinks orders – Waiting for coffee and tea orders takes up valuable time and distracts from the purpose of the meeting. Internal meetings should be “cater for yourself beforehand” scenario to eliminate any time wastage. Sometimes the simplest changes could change the way we conduct ourselves.

Declare "No Meeting Days" Meetings have a way of breaking your speed when working on projects, deadlines or presentations. If you have an organisation decree on No Meetings on a specific day, employees can focus and ensure an increase in productivity.

“First published in HR Future (August 2017), www.hrfuture.net.” 

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