At work, if you want to improve your meetings, then you need to make some adjustments to how you are ending them. Often, next steps and responsibilities are neglected, leading to confusion and frustration.
What if the time you and your team invest in meetings could be made more productive? In this week’s productivity tip, we talk about three easy changes that will make your meetings a place where decisions are made effectively.
What Productivity Questions Does This Video Answer?
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- How can I improve my meetings?
- What can we do to improve meeting followup?
- Do we need more than meeting minutes?
- How can we have fewer meetings?
Video Transcript for How to Improve Your Meetings
Ever go to meeting and at the end you feel like saying, “What happened?” Before you leave your next meeting, invest a couple of minutes with three tips. This will help make your meetings that much more successful. First one, what was discussed? Make sure everyone in the room is in agreement on what’s the main thing that’s coming out of this meeting. What would be the headline on a newspaper? Think about that.
After that, number two. I want you to talk about what was decided. Make sure everyone knows whether there was a consensus decision on a plan of action. What’s going to come out of this meeting? What was decided?
Again if people aren’t sure about it, then the meeting’s not very effective. Make sure there is a clear vision.
Final thing, who’s going to do what? Roles are assigned, people know what they have to do, and there should probably be some sort of deadline. Because everyone hates it when you go to a follow up meeting and nothing has happened.
Some may argue that these points could be covered in meeting minutes but those come out after the session. There may be a big delay. Make sure everyone, before they leave that room, well, they know the game plan.
About This Video Series
Ken Okel’s ongoing Employee Productivity video series will make you more effective on the job. Every week, you’ll learn a new, easy to understand, problem solving tip that you can use right away, like how to improve your meetings.
Tired of a productivity problem, like why the details matter at work? Let us know and we’ll feature it in an upcoming episode.
About Ken Okel
As a motivational speaker, Ken Okel works with leaders and organizations to boost productivity, performance, and profits. At conferences, conventions, and company meetings, he engages audiences with new ways to maximize their time at work. To see a sample of his keynote and workshop presentations, visit his video page.
