Do you love meetings or hate them? Some people love meeting because they provide a chance to get away from your desk and normal, everyday routine. Also, if you’re confident and want to bring yourself to the attention of your manager or other people who might give your career a boost they can a great place to start…if you impress!
Other people hate meetings. They feel that they can be a waste of time – people sitting around a table chatting and getting nothing decided. If you’re not very confident you may have great ideas but feel overwhelmed by other people talking over you, ignoring you or pushing their own agenda. Or, you could sit there thinking how much work you have to do and how long it will take you to catch up when you return to your desk.
All of these views can be valid. But meetings are essential to business flowing smoothly and people communicating properly. So, we just have to make the best of them and, if possible, ensure that they are organised and run as efficiently as possible.
So, if you are responsible for organising or chairing meetings, you should consider the following:
Always make sure that there is a proper agenda that will keep the meeting to the topics that need to be covered, so that attention doesn’t wander elsewhere. It’s important that this agenda is circulated (whether online or on paper) to everyone who is attending the meeting.
Make sure that any papers or documents that need to be read before decisions can be made are circulated to everyone in plenty of time. Not so early that they forget about them, but not so late that they don’t have time to read them.
Keep control of the meeting. Look around and if you see people that look as though they might want to speak, but are being overwhelmed by more forceful personalities, then step in and ask their opinion. If people start to chat or wander off the point – bring them back to it quickly!
It might even help to set a time limit for the meeting in advance (say an hour, or even half an hour) so that people feel they have to get on with the business in hand. I’ve even heard of companies that remove all the chairs from the meeting room and only offer water (no tea/coffee and biscuits) to participants. The idea is that if people can’t get comfortable they’ll do their best to get through the meeting quickly and back to their normal work!
Finally, make sure that proper minutes are kept so that any decisions that are made, and any agreement on action to be taken, are recorded fully and correctly.
If you feel you’d like to know more about running a meeting, preparing an agenda and minutes, or the correct etiquette to follow then you might want to consider the Business English with Spoken English Diploma Course, as it’s all covered there!
Author: Diana Nadin
