Tips for Personal Meeting Effectiveness
There are several things you can do to make meetings more effective. The first, of course, is to have an agenda. One of the best ways to organize your agenda is to discuss the agenda items in advance with the other people who will be at the meeting.
The rule should be “no surprises!” Give the attendees as much advance knowledge and information on the subject of the meeting as you possibly can. Allow them an opportunity to prepare and organize their thoughts. When they come into the meeting, they should have a good idea of what is going to be discussed and what the goals of the meeting might be.
Clarity of Purpose
Start the meeting with a clear statement of purpose. Say something like, “This meeting is to decide whether or not we are going to increase the budget in this area, and if so, by how much, and if we are going to reduce the budget, how much should that be?”
My friend Joel Weldon, one of the top professional speakers and teachers of professional speakers, uses a particular example to illustrate this point. He calls it the “sign on the bus.”
He points out that if you are standing at a bus stop waiting to catch a bus from point A to point B, how do you decide which bus to get on? The answer, of course, is the bus that has your destination written on the sign above the driver.
By the same token, a great way to increase personal efficiency in a meeting or presentation of any kind is for you to announce the “sign on the bus,” the destination of the meeting: what you hope to achieve as the result of bringing these people together.
Background Information
To further improve meeting effectiveness, handing out background information on the subject well in advance gives everyone a chance to plan, prepare, get organized, and be ready to make the meeting as efficient as possible.
Only invite those whose presence is essential. Avoid the natural tendency to invite people to the meeting so that they do not feel left out. The kindest thing you can do as a meeting leader is to tell people that they do not need to attend this particular meeting. They can continue with whatever else they are doing and, if something comes up that is important, you will let them know about it later.
If you are a meeting participant, do everything possible to avoid attending the meeting if you don’t need to be there. Ask the meeting leader if there is some other way that you can make whatever contribution is required of you.
If it is still important that you attend the meeting, ask the meeting leader to discuss the point or points that are relevant to you right at the beginning so that you can make your contribution and then politely excuse yourself.
Make Your Contribution Visual
If you are making a PowerPoint or a written presentation, be sure to have copies of your notes available to hand out with the agenda when you begin. Fully 70 percent of people are visual in the way that they absorb and comprehend information. Only 30 percent of people are verbal. This means that unless a visual person can see the information in writing or pictures, they do not process or retain it for any period of time. This is why it is an excellent idea for you to write down all the key points and make sure that each person has these key points in front of them as you go through them in the meeting.
Writing things out or creating visuals increases meeting efficiency. When people can see what it is you are talking about or discussing, they are much more capable of offering contributions and insights as the meeting progresses.
End Strongly
Every meeting should end with a clear agreement about the next actions. Who is going to do what, by what time, and to what standard? How and when will you or someone else follow up on the action commitments made in the meeting? What happens now?
Think of a meeting as a tool that is absolutely essential if you want to work through and with other people. Resolve to become excellent at using this tool to the best advantage of yourself and your organization. Become known as the kind of person who holds excellent meetings that other people enjoy attending and from which they benefit both personally and in their careers.