Coaching for Leaders

128: Four Practices for Leading an Effective Meeting

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If you do these four things with consistency at the meetings you lead, you’ll get vastly better results from the investment you are making in meeting time.

Worst offenses

  • Trying to come up with a topic to talk about
  • Let’s share what’s going on (without any context for how/why)
  • Information sharing only
  • No agenda
  • Too many agenda items
  • People on devices
  • Too many meetings total

    • Good news! Many of us have almost complete control over how we run meetings as leaders

    1. Determine if the meeting needs to be held at all
    • Is it for brainstorming, training that needs to be done in person, or making a decision? Yes, have the meeting.
    • Is it for sharing of information? No, find a better way to get the information to people.
    • Consider the real cost of staff time
      • 2. Have written or understood guidelines on communication, technology, decision-making, and overall culture of your meetings
      • What do we do when we get off task?
      • How will we capture what is decided and/or next actions?
      • What rules will we have around the use of technology during meetings?
      • Is PowerPoint needed?
        • 3. Set and send agenda in advance with the topic for discussion and end goal of the meeting, along with start and end times
        • If the meeting discussion drifts, call attention to it and decide on addressing or tabling
        • Begin and end on time (considering starting a bit after the hour or ending a bit early)
          • 4. Have everyone walk out of the room with clear action items
          • Follow-up with documentation shortly thereafter
          • Meeting notes – mindmapping (starting point) and outlining (finishing point). I use MindNode and OmniOutliner, respectively.

            • What’s a best practice you’ve discovered for leading effective meetings?

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            Coaching for LeadersBy Dave Stachowiak
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