Numbers don’t lie. Meetings are often considered a waste of time and money. According to research done by Zippia, companies spend roughly 15% of their time on meetings and 71% of those meetings are considered unproductive. Moreover, an estimated $37 billion is lost annually to unproductive meetings.
Meetings can be unproductive for a variety of reasons, such as lack of clear purpose or agenda, poor time management, lack of engagement from participants, having too many attendees, and no follow-up after the meeting. When these issues are present, meetings can feel like a waste of time and fail to achieve their intended goals.
By addressing these issues and implementing strategies to make meetings more productive, you can ensure that your meetings are effective and valuable for all involved.
Here are ways to make meetings more effective and productive:
Ask yourself if the meeting is really necessary
Determine the purpose of your meeting and decide whether it’s really necessary. If you are going to share information, would an email be as effective, if not better? If something needs to be decided upon, could you talk directly to the decision-maker instead? If you need to gauge opinions, why not make a poll?
Have a clear agenda
Once you decide that a meeting is indeed needed, create a clear and concise agenda that outlines the purpose of the meeting and the topics that will be discussed. Share the agenda with all participants in advance so they can come prepared.
Set goals
Define clear goals for the meeting and communicate them to all participants. This helps everyone stay focused and on track during the meeting.
Get the right people to attend the meeting
The more participants, the bigger the drop in productivity. Only invite those who have a specific role in the meeting. If key decision-makers cannot attend, you’ll need to postpone.
Time management
Stick to the specific start and end times of the meeting. Use a timer or clock to keep track of time and ensure that each agenda item is covered within the allotted time.
Participation
Encourage participation from all attendees by creating a safe and respectful environment where everyone’s input is valued. Encourage questions, feedback, and discussion.
Assign action items
At the end of the meeting, assign action items to individuals and set deadlines for completion. This ensures that everyone is clear on their responsibilities and can follow up as needed.
Follow-up
After the meeting, send out meeting minutes that include a summary of the discussion, decisions made, and action items assigned. This helps keep everyone on the same page and ensures that action items are completed in a timely manner.
Use Time Wisely
Avoid meetings turning into one of the fire drills that need to be extinguished in the workplace. Meetings are meant to help organizations achieve their mission and vision by working together effectively and efficiently. Every participant must leave feeling like their time was well spent.
Speaking of time well spent, what if I told you that in just 2 days you could:
- Understand the current state of your business with 100% accuracy
- Get all of your departments on the same page and excited about moving toward the future
- Accurately solve 20% of your problems without changing ANYTHING in your business
- And feel total peace of mind and safety when you get rid of the chaos in your day-to-day
- Plus, a finished flow that is so good you’ll want to show everyone!
This is why I’m so excited to offer again:
It’s a 2-day virtual experience where I take you and your senior leaders through a tool to map out your flow of goods and information over time. You may know this as process mapping.
But it’s not just any tool we are using together. This is THE tool that Toyota used for everything during my years of working with them.
Or visit hilarycorna.com/workshop to learn more.
In your service,
Hilary Corna
