The four principles of effective meetings
I doubt anyone has ever declared, ‘do you know what, I wish I had more meetings this week!’ or ‘this meeting is great, I think it needs to be longer!’ It’s far more likely to hear someone lament the fact that they have ‘way too many meetings’ or that they just spent an hour sitting in a meeting wondering why they were there!
Yet meetings themselves are not the problem, good meetings allow for collaboration, problem solving and a shared understanding of departmental or organisational goals. They should be a place where stuff gets done! Instead of bemoaning the very idea of work meetings, we need to focus our energies on improving them. We need to eliminate bad meetings, unnecessary meetings and the time that this wastes.
Running a great meeting is not a mysterious art, but it does take effort and planning. Following the four principles below should help ensure the meetings you run are effective, valuable and maybe even enjoyable!
Four principles of effective meetings
1. Think –actively question and challenge. As a meeting leader ask yourself if the meeting has any value? As an attendee question whether you need to be there.
2. Plan -plan meetings effectively, like planning an event. Planning properly will ensure meetings are effective and productive.
3. Innovate -use creative formats, utilise technology, schedule meetings for the amount of time your planning has suggested they’ll take, not just the default one hour.
4.Review- regularly evaluate what’s useful/what’s not and make changes based on this evaluation.
So, what can you do to start making some positive changes based on these four principles? Why not start with number 1? Think about the meetings you lead and the meetings you attend. Is there anything that could be improved or changed? If you have any ideas then we’d love to hear about them in the comments below.
