How to Run a Meeting that Achieves Results (and doesn’t suck)

Have you ever sat through a meeting that didn’t seem to follow any specific agenda nor really accomplish anything? Or sat in a long meeting that discussed various topics, but by the end of it, no one had a good idea if a decision was truly made?

I’ve sat in my fair share of terrible meetings and have undoubtedly run meetings that were equally bad. A few years ago, I got involved with a Readiness meeting, which covered just about every topic under the sun. The meeting lasted over two hours due to the sheer breadth of topics we tried to cover in one meeting. The topics ranged from personnel actions, awards, evaluations, physical security, investigations, certification statistics, logistics, communication, maintenance and medical issues. It was terrible.

Nothing seemed to get accomplished in the meeting. The same issues were discussed week after week with no resolution. The really bad news was that I was in charge of the meeting. On the flipside, the good news was that since I was in charge of the meeting, I could do something about it. Instead of tweaking the current meeting, we decided to revamp the entire thing.

What makes most meetings suck?

The following reasons were taken from a survey of readers and highlight the usual suspects:

• Meetings with no agenda. These meetings tend to meander aimlessly from topic to topic.
• Having too many meetings. These allow for no work to be done during the workday.
• Meetings that try to cover too many topics. These meetings tend to be marathon sessions, by the end of which all participants’ eyes are glazed over and mentally smoked.
• Lack decisions. Some meetings turn into long conversations about nothing that will surely be repeated since no decision was made.
• Meetings being run by a leader who can’t keep the conversation on track.
• Or my personal favorite is the meeting that is really a series of updates from various individuals that could have been more effectively accomplished in an email, on a project list, or separate one-on-one meetings. This is much worse when there are 30 people in the meeting.

Lack of focus, lack of clear decisions, and lack of accountability are key factors to poor meetings. This article will show you how to add focus, clarity, and accountability to your meeting that will achieve results.

Guidelines to Achieve Results

If your meetings follow the guidelines below, you can avoid being guilty of holding terrible meetings. Good meetings require intentionality and preparation in order to be effective.

Purpose

• Determine the purpose of meeting first.
  • Why are we bringing everyone together?
  • What are the objectives?
• Once the purpose of the meeting is known you can develop the agenda.

Agenda

• The agenda provides focus to the meeting.
• The agenda should be published prior to the meeting in order to ensure people are prepared.

Accountability

• If topics are brought up that are not on the agenda, anyone in the meeting, regardless of rank or position, had the duty to call it out as an accountability tool to keep the meeting on track. Once called out, that topic will have to be discussed in another venue or time.
• Sometimes we need to use meetings as a forum for public accountability. This isn’t meant to use meetings to embarrass people or throw them under a bus in public. In order to understand the root cause of an issue, you sometimes need to get different sides of the story at the same time from all participants to avoid chasing your tail. Meetings can be used as a forum for public accountability.

Preparation

• Send out a reminder a couple days out before the meeting. The reminder should include the purpose of meeting and agenda.
• If people aren’t aware of the meeting’s purpose, are caught off guard, or aren’t armed with the agenda, then you might end up repeating the same conversations in meeting after meeting.

During the Meeting

• Take notes during the meeting that include:
  • Key Highlights
  • Decisions made
  • Due-outs – Ensure that a date is established for each deadline. If no deadline is assigned, then plan on the deadline being the next scheduled meeting.
• Review decisions made and due outs (with deadlines) at the end of the meeting to ensure everyone has clarity.

After the Meeting

Send out notes within 15 minutes of the meeting’s conclusion that include decisions made and deadlines.

Conclusion

Once we followed the steps above, we quickly noticed that our meetings started to mean something and things were getting done. People understood the purpose of the meeting, we kept ourselves accountable to each other and focused on the agenda. Our meetings were noticeably achieving results and we found ourselves making progress instead of rehashing old business. It’s amazing what results a meeting can achieve with a little focus, clarity, and accountability.

Question: How have you made your meetings more effective?