5 Simple Steps to Run a More Effective Meeting

Someone said that 85% of meetings are a waste of time. Here’s 5 steps to make sure that your meetings are among the most effective.

  1. Have an agenda. A meeting without an agenda means the meeting has no direction to start with.
  2. Someone must run the meeting. The person who chairs the meeting must manage the crowd, the information and the agenda.
  3. Start and finish on time. Try to keep the meeting to an hour or less. If it’s going to take longer than an hour, reschedule another meeting on another day.
  4. All tech off. Just what this says. ALL tech off. For the duration of the meeting. You’ll survive without your phone for an hour. And, you will pay more attention to what’s going on.
  5. Rate the meeting. At the end of the meeting, go around the room and ask each participant to rate the meeting – on a scale of 1-5 where 1 is a ‘waste of time’ and 5 is ‘one of the best meetings ever’. Then, ask each person to suggest one thing you could “do differently” to make the meeting better. Record these responses as your “do differently” list.

Start the next meeting with the “do differently” list and try to improve the next meeting.

If you follow these 5 steps, your meetings will be seen as helpful, effective, focused and clear. Try this. If it works for you, congratulate yourself on running better meetings!