12 Best Practices of Effective Business Meetings
Successful and efficient business meetings are often essential to an organization’s day-to-day operations. Meetings that are properly planned and kept on track are more likely to keep employees’ attention and promote interactive brainstorming opportunities to get multiple perspectives on tasks and projects. In this article, we share 12 tips to run more effective business meetings.
What is a business meeting?
Business meetings are gatherings of two or more people for the purpose of making decisions or discussing company objectives. Business meetings can take place between company executives and employees, company representatives and clients or department leaders and their teams. They can be held in person, on the phone or over video conferencing.
Business meetings generally fall into one of these categories:
Team building meetings
Innovation meetings
Information sharing meetings
Status update meetings
Decision-making meetings
Problem-solving meetings
Tips for conducting a productive business meeting
Poorly managed business meetings can weaken your company’s productivity and have a negative effect on employee morale and teamwork. Consider these guidelines to run more effective business meetings:
1. Set a goal and communicate it clearly
Determining the goal of the meeting and communicating it clearly to attendees is the top priority, as it shapes the meeting agenda and prepares the attendees to contribute. To set a clear goal, ask yourself the following questions:
How did the request for the business meeting originate?
Did multiple people agree that a meeting was necessary, or is it just one person who needs clarity?
What is the result that we're hoping to achieve?
What are the obstacles that stand in our way?
When you know what you are trying to achieve and what's in your way, you've got a clear purpose and goal for your meeting. Narrow it down to one sentence and share it with the participants in your meeting request. If you have a one-sentence, result-driven goal for each business meeting you conduct, you will likely see better outcomes and be more efficient with your time. If you are not sure yet about the purpose or goal of the business meeting or if you can achieve the goal by any other means of communication, then postpone the meeting.
2. Organize the business meeting around driving a decision
To save time, reserve business meetings for problem-solving or directing actions. You can follow up on assigned tasks via other means of communication such as email or instant messaging so the meeting time can remain goal-oriented.
If you are meeting with a client, ask them what they would like to discuss during your time together. If you find their responses are either inconsistent, at odds with what you have prepared or confusing, they are probably not on the same page as you. This makes the meeting unproductive and a waste of time.
3. Be exclusive
One of the primary causes of ineffective business meetings is not including the "right" participants. Having five or fewer participants can help your meetings start and finish on time and make it easier to signify a single decision-maker.
Although odd numbers are more effective for collective vote-taking and decision-making, it's most important to include people who are vital to the points of discussion. Here's a checklist to help you determine who legitimately need to be present at your business meeting:
Those with relevant knowledge
Team members who are crucial to the implementation
Decision-makers or team members who have direct responsibility or authority over the points of discussion
Team members who have the required knowledge to contribute meaningfully that's unavailable elsewhere
Team members who are most affected by the problem being addressed
Most importantly, determine who makes decisions. Whenever possible, talk to that person. If you need to involve multiple people, make sure to communicate with them before the meeting to determine who is the decision-maker and who is the point of contact for follow-up.
4. Set an agenda for the meeting
Without a predetermined agenda, your business meeting will deviate from its course and likely last longer than it should. Make an agenda in advance to keep participants focused and ensure you cover the points you need to. Here are a few things to keep in mind when setting an agenda for your business meeting:
Determine the goals of the meeting.
Write down the questions you want to address.
Ask attendees for input.
Estimate the amount of time you need to spend on each topic.
Determine the purpose of each task.
Identify who will lead each topic.
Conclude each meeting with a review.
Also, if there's a specific problem to which you need a solution, encourage the participants to prepare solutions in advance, so the meeting focuses on solutions rather than on the problem. This helps participants feel invested because they're contributing to the meeting.
Here's an example of a business meeting agenda:
MEETING AGENDA
Date: April 1, 2022
Time: 2-2:50 p.m.
Location: Zoom meeting [link here]
Facilitator: Leela Ramachandra
Objective: How to increase online sales
Main meeting topics: (45 min total)
Topic 1: Review sales figures for Q1 and Q2 (15 minutes)
Topic 2: Discuss issues causing a decline in online sales (15 minutes)
Topic 3: Review lead general and digital marketing campaigns (15 minutes)
Action items and next steps: (5 minutes total)
Katrina, William and Dave will run an A/B test on new landing pages
Justin's team will work on new lead generation assets
Kate will come up with upselling strategies
Darren will recap the things we discussed and agreed, as well as confirm takeaways with stakeholders within three hours of meeting end
5. Automate scheduling and communication
A productivity app, calendar or scheduling tool significantly reduces the time it takes to schedule with meeting participants. With integrated reminder notifications, the chance participants attend on time increases. Whatever application you use to send a calendar invite, make sure to include any preparation materials that your participants need as attachments.
6. Change the environment
Meetings can be boring and repetitive, which can affect productivity. When your participants get comfortable with their environment, they may disengage. Shake things up by conducting your meeting at a different time if you’re meeting virtually, or a different venue if you’re meeting in person. Changing up meeting patterns can disrupt routine and break up cliques, which encourages creativity.
7. Set expectations and remove distractions
Set expectations that everybody must focus on the meeting. Begin the meeting by telling the participants that you plan to follow the meeting's agenda. If you expect everyone’s full attention, set the tone by putting away distractions like your phone or unrelated documents. Mention that the agenda includes some time at the end of the meeting for discussion or questions.
8. Encourage full participation
It's not your job to police, entertain or be the sole communicator. You'll likely have information to present at the top of the meeting for context, but the point is to have a conversation. To capture the attention of the participants and keep them engaged, follow up your presentation with questions. Ask more than questions with yes or no answers, such as, "Do you have any questions about it?”
Here are other examples of engaging questions:
"Does anyone have other recommendations or thoughts?"
"Does anyone foresee any issues with this solution/approach?"
"What are other things we should consider?"
"Who else might be affected by this decision?"
"Are there any other resources we need before we execute this decision?"
"Who has more ideas that they would like to share on this?"
For meetings with future or current clients, you can also ask the following questions:
"What's the single most important thing you want to get from this meeting?"
"What are some trends you are seeing in your field that you would like to stay competitive on or up to date?"
"Tell a bit more about your company."
9. Make decisions efficiently
After you have discussed each point on your agenda, it's time to make a decision. If you are having an internal meeting in which the decision-makers are all present, you can make the decision-making process collaborative with an exhaustive list of solutions. Once you have narrowed it down to the best options, ask attendees which responses they are willing to commit to and what kind of results they expect to see. You can ask them to vote on each option to determine which ranks the best.
10. Assign deliverables and action items
Before you leave the meeting, make sure you decide on the next steps. Each action should have a person responsible and a clear deliverable. Set a deadline and discuss any resource needs or obstacles that could slow progress and a strategy to overcome them.
Lastly, determine any stakeholders not included in the meeting and plan to communicate the outcome of the meeting to them. Whether your meeting is with a client, partner, vendor or your team, chances are you need to share the meeting results and probably even ask for a follow-up response.
11. Gather feedback from participants
After the meeting, ask participants to provide feedback on the meeting's effectiveness. If you are working with a new meeting format or a new team, you might ask them to rank the meeting. If they perceive the meeting as ineffective, ask them what makes it ineffective so that you can continue improving your facilitation. Make sure to clarify that their evaluation should be based on how the meeting was conducted rather than the outcome or content of the meeting.
With any type of business meeting, you can ask participants to evaluate whether expectations for the meeting were met and how well problems were overcome or avoided. Also, assess if they had a clear sense of the decision, next steps and any plans to address open items.
Conduct the same evaluation yourself and save your notes with time and date stamps in the same private location each time. In addition to improving meeting effectiveness, reflection and integration of feedback strengthens your rapport and makes you a better professional.
12. Review outcome, iterate and improve
In addition to evaluating how the meeting itself went, track the outcomes. Set baselines for your meeting-related key performance indicators (KPIs)—evaluation rating, time to hire, service-level agreements—if you don't have them already. Make sure to track towards a goal, using the feedback from the participants and the tips mentioned above to improve the effectiveness of your meeting.
Progress towards a company goal may take some time to evaluate. In the meantime, look for patterns in the results of your meeting by asking yourself the following questions:
Does it seem like decisions get stuck during a certain phase of projects or part of the quarter?
Have you found that you are more conscious and ready to facilitate a meeting later in the day after your first one or four cups of coffee?
Do you get more meetings scheduled at a certain time of day or day of the week?
Find correlations in your personal meeting notes. Find out if the most ineffective or unproductive meetings include the same participant, have a vague purpose or have several points of discussion.
You can use these evaluations to develop your own handbook for business meeting effectiveness tailored to your particular field or industry, goals and meeting types. Share best practices with your friends and coworkers and see the productivity increase.