How Do I Host an Efficient Meeting?

During a story mining session this week, a client had a great quote about meetings.

“There is nothing like meeting for hours only to come forth with minutes,” he said.

Inefficient meetings provide just that: meeting minutes.

However, effective, efficient meetings with high engagement – be them in person or virtually – provide renewed enthusiasm, unique perspective and a road map for success.

Here are some tips to get more out of a meeting than just those minutes:

• Develop an agenda 24 to 48 hours in advance and send to entire team for feedback and thoughts; use the feedback in a final version of the agenda
• Think of meeting minutes more like a teacher might, meaning rather than repeating the meeting word for word, create a contact report with to-do items (homework assignments) with due dates for all members of the team
• Ensure each person attending the meeting is prepared to speak on something or contribute in some way; don’t include too many flies on the wall as it can bring down energy
• Budget in time for actual creativity versus just noting it as a line item in an agenda and moving on; and have some ideas ready to throw out yourself to help get the ball rolling
• Start – and end – on time
• Wrap the meeting up with a summary of what will be done next and by when. For example, a contact report detailing the top five things to get done – which are XX, XX, XX, XX and XX – who will oversee them and the dates to get them done will be provided by XX

Also, for some of those “regular” meetings that might happen weekly or monthly that are now mostly online, be mindful of Zoom fatigue. Some meetings really can just be a phone call or email. Perhaps they are minutes for minutes, not an hour or two for them.

For help in hosting your marketing communications meetings, click here.