Highly Effective Meetings
Leading at Light Speed is a groundbreaking leadership book by Eric Douglas describing the 10 Quantum Leaps which build trust, spark innovation, and create a high-performing organization.
Chapter 3 is about how to Lead Through Others and on page 60 Eric talks about how to manage highly effective meetings.
The key to highly effective meetings is not what you do during the meeting, but what you do before and after the meeting. Here are four of the practices that we teach:
1. Take ownership of the agenda. Before the meeting, decide what outcomes you want, what decisions need to be made, the time required, what information will be provided, and who needs to be included. Send out a copy of the final agenda to all attendees, as well as any relevant background data..
2. Stay Focused. During the meeting, remember the following mantra. “Make sure we’re having the conversation we need to have.When people get distracted, it's the meeting captain's duty to get back on track.. Offending people shouldn't be your concern; people appreciate strong leadership..
Introduce each item by providing the necessary context and linkage to previous decisions. Once the discussion begins, keep everyone focused on the agenda topic. If an extraneous topic gets introduced, put it in the “parking lot” and decide later whether it warrants a separate discussion. Give everyone a chance to provide input, and keep a tight watch on the clock.
3. Achieve closure. Before going on to a new item, be confident that the desired outcome has been achieved.. If an action step has been identified, make sure everyone understands. Clarify the next steps. Decide on who’s going to communicate the results of the discussion.
4. Preserve a printed documentation.. At the conclusion of the meeting, provide a followup memo to remind everyone what was decided.. This memo becomes a fail-safe way to check later to ensure that the necessary actions have occurred. Notes are very useful to keep track of what's been accomplished.. Lastly, it avoids wasting time trying to recollected the events of previous meetings.!
Is your organization implementing the practices of high performing organizations? Find out with this free work survey.
