In the spirit of brevity and productivity, here are 5 simple steps for more efficient, effective meetings. I am not saying that all competition is bad, but there is a difference between some healthy competition and chronic contention in meetings. So whats the criteria for great and effective meetings: Effective meetings always have a goal. I remember it because I felt important, I felt valued, and I felt that I was adding value. In hindsight, Dave the principle engineer made every Monday meeting productive, safe, organized, engaging, efficient and collaborative. So many corporate meetings are a waste of time, boring and dreadful. 5) Effective meetings require sharing control and making commitments. Have you ever been involved in a project that didn't require a meeting? A safe environment facilitates different point of views and encourages participation. Meetings cost organization 7-15% of total employee salary budget. If team members don’t read the minutes from the last meeting, if they don’t prepare their agenda for the meeting, or if they don’t do what they are supposed to do outside of the meeting, then a lot of time has to be dedicated to the meeting to handle these issues instead of the main issue. MEETINGS, in essence, are meant to boost productivity and efficiency. Meetings in your organization are supposed to be a cooperative and not contentious. If a company has a 10 million for salaries, then 700K to 1.5 million is spent in meetings, and that does not include time dedicated to preparation for these sessions. When people feel threatened, they don’t share, participate and give a 100%. Peter Khoury: Founder @ MagneticSpeaking X-Pharmaceutical Engineer, turned author, national speaker and executive presentation coach. 406 Brannan Street October 23, 2011 Leave a comment. Hence, in the spirit of spurring more efficient meetings than most are fortunate enough to be a part of, here are 7 characteristics found in any effective workplace meeting. Top Six (6) Characteristics of Effective Meetings. Characteristics of Good Meetings Well-run meetings set goals, clarify responsibilities, and create future leaders for your company. But you can change that. 6) The ultimate goals of every meeting are agreements, decisions, or solutions. Effective leaders attend to all of these to create an effective meeting. Effective leaders attend to all of these to create an effective meeting. Meetings can be the most potent breeding ground of ideas and innovations for any company, while offering an opportunity for employees and executives to have an interactive exchange of opinions not found anywhere else, but only when they're done right. Every day 83 million people attend 11.5 million meetings. 1) Spend twice as much time on the agenda as you normally would. Three things guarantee an unproductive meeting: poor planning, lack of appropriate process, and hostile culture. 1) Definition: A meeting is a business activity where select people gather to perform work that requires a team effort. Sorry, we couldn't find any posts. As a participant in bad meetings, you know how energy drawing and productivity zapping they can be. High-performing teams are characterised by the following norms of communications conduct:.. After the Meeting. It’s difficult to tease out the factors that make one group of people an effective team and another, equally talented group of people a dysfunctional one; well-functioning, successful teams usually have chemistry that can’t be quantified. 1) Definition: A meeting is a business activity where select people gather to perform work that requires a team effort. Ann Chastain, Michigan State University Extension - February 17, 2012. Contribution toward either the planning of the meeting or perhaps the presentations to be displayed and ideas to be tabled can provide incentive for each attendee to shed optimum levels of dedication, while utilising the entire manpower at hand and bear fruit capable of steering the company in question forward. The top 6 elements of effective meeting management include announcing it well in advance, a succinct agenda, starting on time, controlling the talkers, arranging for effective minutes to be taken, a brief time for freestyle comments, and then timely adjournment. CHARACTERISTICS OF NEGATIVE MEETINGS • 83% -- Drifting off the subject • 77% -- Poor preparation • 68% -- Lack of listening` • 60% -- Length • 51% -- Lack of participation From “Achieving Effective Meetings – Not Easy But Possible” by Bradford D. Smart in a survey of 635 executives. Characteristics of an Effective Meeting - Guidelines and Tips. As a leader, you don’t want your meetings to be that way. In reality, we find ourselves stuck at unproductive meetings, week after week. Please try a different search. Well-run project meetings allow teams to get through the maze of distractions and obstacles to achieve results. Effective meetings help your group reach its goals. A major reason for this might be the fact that active participation from attendees is not something seen often in formal workplace meetings, and contradicting this very flaw could be the resolution of many efficiency issues that hamper meetings. You want your meetings to be effective, and memorable. This article explains why each of the elements is important and provides suggesting for implementing them. Have you been to a meeting and felt that you have to be on guard? © 2020 Magnetic Speaking, All Rights Reserved. As one of our girls once said, "trust is like the oil that keeps things running smoothly." The person who calls the meeting should generally be the meeting leader. Characteristics of successful meetings. They seem to get into a virtuous cycle in which one good quality builds on another. Collaboration brings the best in people and allows them to contribute and share. Contention brings out politics and win/lose scenarios which are not conducive to getting results. When everyone is on the same page and aware of what should be done, even the most challenging tasks can be completed. Here are ten fund amental concepts that characterize an effective meeting. • There is a great deal of discussion in which everyone participates. 1) Definition: A meeting is a business activity where select people gather to perform work that requires a team effort. Meetings shall have a meeting leader. 5) Effective meetings require sharing control and making commitments. Someone is assigned to keep track of minutes and the agenda. If you have worked in an office environment for any period of time, then you will doubtless have spent countless hours in meetings, many of them unproductive – i.e., you tuned out after a while, wondering why … Effective meetings are imaginative, participative, innovative and engaging. Meetings held for other reasons seldom produce anything of value. Here are ten fundamental concepts that characterize an effective meeting. The good news is that effective meetings have distinct characteristics. If it’s run effectively, a meeting can be an extremely useful way to pool resources and get multiple perspectives on a task or project. Trust is the foundation of any group. In the book “How to make meetings work.” The author estimates that organizations spend 7-15% of their salary budgets on meetings. In addition to Public Speaking training, Peter is a regular speaker on the topics of Negotiations, Conflict Management and Leadership. The goal could be to brainstorm, to agree on a timeline, to decide next steps, etc. 10 Characteristics of Effective Meetings Here are ten fundamental concepts that characterize an effective meeting. During the Meeting. 10 Characteristics of Effective Meetings Diana Gabriel has used her years of experience and insight to pull together 10 ‘fundamental concepts that characterise effective meetings’. Crenshaw said the six principles of effective meetings are: 1. Most meetings are draining and flat out waste of time. PRE-PLANNED - A meeting which pins the entirety of its hopes on figuring our an agenda and topics of discussion when on the spot itself will not only rob a myriad of employees of their precious time, but squander the meeting's potential for productivity even before ideas begin to be tabled. An organized meeting has a beginning, a middle and an end with different goals to achieve and items of attack. At the end of that meeting, I felt great and ready to tackle the week. Effective meetings need structure, order and ground rules. Want to run an effective meeting? Many ... Make it a habit to follow these suggestions for more effective meetings, and to make sure that important work really gets done. Since an organized meeting establishes the rhythm and cadence of future meetings, then participants will stop worrying about how the meeting will run and start focusing on the issues at hand with greater intensity. Meetings can be the most potent breeding ground of ideas and innovations for any company, while offering an opportunity for employees and executives to have an interactive exchange of opinions not found anywhere else, but only when they're done right. If you go in circles, repeat things, revisit old issues in every meeting then your meetings are not efficient. Characteristics of Effective Meetings You know when you’ve been at a good meeting; time passes quickly, you come out feeling good, things get done, and you know where you stand. Have you been to a meeting and thought “what does this have to do with me?” I bet that was not a great meeting to attend because it was not relevant to you. INTERACTION - A successful meeting enables effective communication between employees and executives, two groups that might otherwise hesitate to interact with one another even in an open work environment encouraging of the same. Bad meetings = big cost. Good meetings are essential for collective decision-making, planning and follow-up, accountability, democracy, and other practices that will help you to build a good organization. A meeting in the process of fruition that starts in such a way not only compels participants to make most of their allotted time while they and their contemporaries are in confluence, but extract result orientated performances from each of them during this junction. And you can learn how to make your meetings both useful and enjoyable for everyone there. Without these elements they can go on forever and not accomplish a thing. FOCUS - Meetings must focus on a particular topic above all other potential discussions, meaning that sacrifices might have to be made on the rare occasion or two of even ideas that might otherwise be brilliant, but stray from the tabled agenda on hand. As proven by mass brainstorming sessions and impressive inter-department interactions found at many a fabled multinational corporation the world over, meetings are perhaps the greatest juncture for an entire company to descend upon a common location and resolve issues that might otherwise stand the test of time, and therefore, the boons of simply even doing them kept aside, their successful implementation can bequeath companies with innovations and suggestions that individual employees might've never conjured. Meetings are vital for the work of any organization. When working as an engineer, I had my fair share of technical meetings. With a solid objective in mind, a tight agenda, and a commitment to involving the meeting participants in the planning, preparation, and execution of the meeting, you are well on your way to chairing great meetings. This can vary from workers being allowed a say or opinion on ideas stemming from those obviously much superior in rank or experience to them, and post-meeting agendas, which can only be gathered after an efficient meeting in the first place, to concern themselves with free, productive exchanges of ideas between the employers and their employees without a formal barrier to separate the two and squander any ideas that might be potent innovations. Reflect poorly on your characteristics of effective meetings skills business event, succeeds when it is preceded by … characteristics of an meeting. At hand State University Extension effect leading better and better meetings, they don ’ t want your meetings be... 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