As a leader, our objective must be to drive success and move our companies forward.  To do this, we need to have effective team communication and decision – making.  In short, we need to have excellent meetings.

“As a consultant, the most common weakness I see in organizations is the lack of work that is done in a meeting.”  Stan Sipes

Good leaders need to run meetings well; they need to be effective facilitators.

Before the Meeting

• Ensure that the meeting is needed
• Determine the objective for the meeting and create an agenda (with suggested time frames within the meeting if needed)
• Invite the right attendees and only the right attendees to keep the meeting to a reasonable size
• Pass out all meeting presentation materials ahead of time
• Require that all attendees review the presentation materials and come prepared

During the Meeting

• Have the meeting room and seating arrangement the way we want it (Hint: be careful of having those supporting one side of the argument on one side of the table and those supporting the other side of the argument on the other side of the table).
• Start the meeting on time
• Ensure the meeting sticks to the suggested time frames
• Avoid repeating what is in the pre-meeting materials
• Manage the atmosphere in the meeting, keeping it positive and productive and diffusing anger and other negative emotions
• Keep the discussion on point, pulling the discussion out of ‘rabbit holes’ and avoiding tangents
• Shut down (politely) the chatter boxes
• Call on lower ranking employees first so that their viewpoint is not affected by their boss’ viewpoint
• By the end, make sure everyone has been heard by calling on everyone to get their opinions (even the silent types)
• Keep the meeting moving forward
• Do interim summaries and time checks
• Conclude with a final summary and action item list (3 – 5 items are enough) for next steps (with due dates)
• End the meeting on time

After the Meeting

• Send everyone an E-Mail meeting recap with the action item list
• Follow up to ensure that the 3 – 5 action items are completed on time

To Improve Our Business, We Need to Improve Our Meetings

This list is a simple meeting facilitator checklist.  If we follow them, we will be able to facilitate our meetings better ensuring that we have more effective meetings.