We’ve all sat through unproductive meetings and struggled to keep our eyes open or stop fuming about the colossal waste of time. These meetings are a source of frustration for both the facilitator and the attendee, and, if regular, can create negative feelings about a company. So how can meetings be more effective, efficient, and attention grabbing?
Here are a few tips for small business owners.
1. Ask yourself: Do you really need to meet?
Kent Lewis is founder and president of Anvil Media, Inc., a search engine marketing firm in Portland, Ore. He is a big fan of one-on-one conversations, e-mail strings, and Gmail chatting in lieu of a meeting, when appropriate, and recommends entrepreneurs look at the decisions at stake before scheduling a sit-down. Small decisions don’t need meetings, he says.
“Especially if everyone sits within 3 feet of each other, you can just have a quick conversation, but if part of the team is half way around the world or if you are dealing with an emotional hot potato, it might be more productive to have a meeting,” Lewis says.
2. Create an agenda
This may seem silly if you only have five employees, but Lewis says it is vital to keeping a meeting on track.
“Without a sense of structure, no one knows who is doing what—even regularly scheduled meetings need to have an agenda,” he says.
3. Keep it short
There is nothing worse than a meeting that goes long. Lewis recommends planning a one-hour meeting with 45 minutes of content and padding the rest for Q&A.
“Adjourn early and everyone will love you. This shows that you respect their time—even if a key decision maker is late, start anyway,” he says.
According to, Bart R. Wendell, Ph.D., owner of Wendell Leadership in Petersham, Mass., and author of Hot Leaders Cool Facilitators: Learning to Lead One Meeting At A Time, it is important to single out one attendee as a time keeper.
“A common technique is to say, ‘Lets go for 20 minutes…so-and-so, will you tell us when 17 minutes is up?’—then tell the group that if you can’t finish today, there will be a follow-up session,” he says.
4. Engage attendees
Ever wondered why your meeting attendees never ask any questions? Why they all sit there like mice?
“They might be scared to speak up, or their energy may be zapped by looking at too many facts and figures,” Wendell says.
Speak clearly, he advises. Honesty and transparency can go a long way, as can a self-deprecating sense of humor. “It puts people at ease and shows them that you are human,” he adds.
This behavior can also open people up to answering questions and participating. Lewis recommends singling out people and asking for their feedback.
“Build in time for feedback and ask one of your employees, ‘What do you think about this?’—it will require them to answer, rather than just giving a yes or no,” he says.
5. Schedule the next meeting
Instead of waiting until everyone is back at his or her desks to schedule the next gathering, do it during the meeting, Lewis suggests.
“After re-capping the meeting, agree on a time for the next meeting and have everyone put it in their calendars right there. Therefore, no one will have an excuse for missing it later,” he says.
6. Re-cap immediately
People quickly forget the content of a meeting when they have other things going on, so Lewis suggests sending out a re-cap right after the meeting.
“Send it out within an hour or by the end of day at the latest. I would fire someone if they took three or four days to send it out,” he says, adding that the re-cap should include meeting notes and action items highlighted by timeline.