Tips to Improve Meetings

Meetings are an essential part of the life of every organisation and your ability to run effective meetings with your management skills is a critical part of your success in meeting management.

There are a series of things I recommend that you keep in the back of your mind.

Keep reading and enjoy these 5 tips .

Meeting Management Tip #1: Begin With a Purpose.

One of the most important tasks you need to set out is to begin meetings on time and set out the purpose of the meeting. Remember the first 5-7 minutes of any meeting is the most important component setting out the purpose and what you want to achieve. Be sure to also keep on track, don’t go down rabbit holes or overrun.

Meeting Management Tip #2: Encourage Open Discussion for More Effective Meetings.

It is important to get input from everyone, remember different people have different personalities and some will find it easier that others to get their point across and get ‘air time’. When holding effective meetings it is vital everyone gets heard and people don’t dominate

Meeting Management Tip #3: Press for Closure.

Once you start talking on a subject, discuss it thoroughly but press for closure on what has been decided and who’s going to do what and by when, before you go on to the next item on the agenda.

The inability to keep on track and to press for closure are the two major time wasters and major complaints from people who attend non-effective meetings.

Meeting Management Tip #4: Summarise the Main Point.

An important meeting management tip to learn is to summarize at the end of each discussion point and at the end of the meeting.  Set out and summarize your time and action schedules, and your implementation plan and assignments.  Then have everybody in the meeting agree on what has been decided.

Meeting Management Tip #5: Keep a Record.

Finally, distribute minutes from the meeting within 24 hours. The more important the decisions that have been taken, the more important that you have them distributed in writing so that if they have questions they can get back to you.

If there are no questions then they are accepting the record of the meeting as distributed. This is a final step that is very important part of conducting more effective meetings and improving your management skills.

If you need help in learning to write effective minutes we have a great eLearning course called the Minute Takers Workshop which is available as both an online course or distance learning package.

 At Churchill Square Training & Development we can use Insights Discovery as part of a programme to ensure you work together as a team, you will get to know everyone in the team, their strengths, weaknesses and communication styles. In meetings everyone has something different to offer, some of this can be based on their individual preferences. Contact us today for more information.

enquiries@churchillsquareconsulting.co.uk

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