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Let’s Be Productive in Our Meetings

Tyler Banfield

June 03, 2013

According to research conducted by MCI, most employees believe that over half the time they spend in meetings is a complete waste.

The most obvious reason meetings have such a bad reputation is because people feel like they're just one more thing to cram into their already hectic schedule.

A less obvious but even more important reason for businesses to care about maximizing the productivity of their meetings is a Harvard Business School study found that when employees are regularly interrupted by meetings, it lowers their overall focus and creativity.

If you want to prevent your employees' happiness, focus and creativity from being adversely impacted by meetings, here are three ways to ensure that every meeting you hold is a productive one:

Set Clear Goals and Times

Businesses often make the mistake of holding meetings just because that's what they've always done.

While it's important to periodically get your entire team in the same room, don't feel pressured to stick to the same frequency. Instead of automatically scheduling a weekly meeting, wait until you know there's at least one important topic that needs to be addressed. By taking this approach, you may learn that you only need half as many meetings as you originally thought.

In addition to having at least one concrete goal for every meeting that you schedule, be sure to set and actually stick to clear start and end times.

Most efficiency experts agree that 45 minutes is the ideal length for a meeting. If you absolutely have to go past the end time you set, limit the overage to 15 minutes. And be sure to let everyone know that regardless of what happens, they'll be back to their normal routine in 15 minutes or less.

Start Off with the Right Tone

Since you want your meetings to be as productive as possible, you may assume that you should skip the pleasantries and get right down to business.

While that's a logical and fair assumption, efficiency researchers have found that it can actually backfire by making everyone in the room less likely to chime in when they have something valuable to say.

The best way to create a meeting environment that's conducive to input and collaboration is to spend just a little bit of time on small talk.

By asking one or two friendly questions, you can establish that it's fine for everyone to share what's actually on their minds. Making that small investment of time to get the ball rolling will actually prevent larger amounts of time from being wasted during the rest of the meeting.

Make Action a Habit

One of the worst feelings is spending time in a meeting coming to multiple decisions, only to discover during the next meeting that no one actually followed up on taking any action.

Fortunately, you can prevent this problem by clearly defining what needs to be done after a meeting wraps. Although it may initially require sending quite a few reminder emails, you'll find that once everyone knows that they'll be held accountable, they will start promptly taking care of whatever needs to be done.

Now that you know exactly what makes meetings productive, don't forget to utilize all three tips when it's time to hold your next meeting.

The success of your small business depends heavily on the productivity and happiness of your employees, so make it your business to meet effectively and only when needed.

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