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  • Writer's pictureJonathan Bullock

How to run engaging, productive meetings



Another week and your calendar is full of meetings. Some are productive but most of them are a waste of time. Many of these meetings are unproductive not only for you but for your team as well. Not to mention being bad for team morale.


Your team should be interested and engaged in meetings, not bored and drifting off. As a leader, you have a responsibility to lift the standard of meetings. I know, easier said than done.


Here are some ideas to raise the bar when it comes to meetings:


Ensure each meeting has a purpose. More importantly, clearly communicate that purpose. Do away with presentations. Instead, have all material communicated at least 24 hours before the meeting. Meetings should be about discourse and decisions, not listening to information that could have been read in advance.


Invite a relevant audience. Time is precious, don't waste your teams' time by making them attend meetings that are not relevant to them. If the meeting has more than eight people, there are probably people there who don’t need to be. What's more, if by the end of the meeting, someone has not contributed, they possibly didn’t need to be there so you should encourage them to leave unless they are getting value from it and they could not spend their time any better.


Ask your team. Take the time to ask them about what their meeting pain points are, and how they think they can be improved. Feedback is a gift.


TAKEAWAY: You can massively improve productivity and team morale if you make your meetings more effective and do away with any that are unnecessary. Take some time to change the ways in which you and your team, and make everyone’s work life a little more enjoyable.


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