Have you ever attended a meeting and instantly come out frustrated at the time that has been wasted? This will be a good read for anyone who has, or for anyone who has ever caused an employee to feel this way.
The general goal of a business meeting should be to address current issues and updates within the company in an informative way, and notify colleagues of any future plans of action.
Think about who your audience is. Everyone in attendance should benefit from being at the meeting. For some reason, many companies get a bit too excited when sending meeting invites out to employees and instead click ‘send to all.’ All of a sudden the manager of the sales department suddenly finds himself in a meeting that is concerned with the creative advertising of the company. Although it may be an interesting meeting, where biscuits and tea are on sight (if you’re lucky!), it is important to remember that a meeting should never be called if the decision can be made by an individual or a selective few. Be specific and only invite key people.
The Success team attended the Chelmsford City Showcase for Businesses late last year where we were giving a talk by communication speaker Nick Looby on how meetings should resemble hyper-efficient pit stops, which are designed to make both a worker’s job and the outcome of the business better. The pit-stops should contain a high level of productivity and instructions should be clarified. Everything spoken about within the meeting should also be agreed on with a key focus placed on the new call for action; this is where people are told what to do with the information they now have.
Nick stressed that the power of knowledge can only be exploited once the power of action is discovered. And when it comes to meetings, we couldn’t agree more!
