How to Make Your Meetings More Productive?

Regular meetings and brainstorming sessions are an important part of the work culture at any organization.

Then why do so many professionals find meetings to be a waste of time?

As a busy professional, you’d agree that there are many situations where emails slow you down, where you need everyone on the same page, where context is more important than content, where emotion is more important than the task. In all these situations, meetings are super useful.

However, hopping in and out of several meetings tends to wear out people, and the effectiveness of a meeting may be lost. Working on multiple projects or cases can lead to overlapping of discussions during a meeting.

While a plethora of blogs and articles suggest tips on making a meeting more effective – and the participants more attentive, there is a much simpler way of making your meetings more useful.

Have an agenda and come prepared!

To put the plan to action, you can share the project details/agenda a day in advance and guide the team members to be prepared with their suggestions and ideas the next day.

In my experience, it pays to encourage everyone to research on a topic to share their unique perspective before attending a meeting. For example, if the meeting is about improving efficiency, encourage the participants to read case studies in leading magazines such as the Harvard Business Review and see what kind of ideas were given to improve the outcome of the meeting.

‘Meetings are for building upon existing knowledge or information to find solutions to problems. Reinventing the wheel during meetings is a sheer waste of everybody’s time.

To do:

• Have an agenda for your meetings in advance
• Share it with employees so that they come prepared
• Encourage people to share their views and never belittle anyone