MEETINGS are important in companies. They play a communicative role and are crucial in decision-making and sharing values and visions.
However, at times, meetings can become fruitless and they defeat their key role.
Creation culture
Meetings are guided by the general corporate culture.
Meetings can be dominated by the boss or manager, thereby stifling others who might be subordinates, but have creative ideas.
The composition of a meeting impacts the quality of ideas, hence the need to have different age groups.
Keep Reading
- Hear our views: Plumtree residents demand
- Book review: Sibanda’s Cabinet Meetings: A probe of gender relations
The elders bring the tried and tested models, while the young might bring futurist and disruptive insights.
Chaos to clarity
Lack of preparation removes order from a meeting.
Unprepared participants hinder productive, progressive and positive discussions.
The solution to this is to share meeting agendas in advance. This makes attendees know the purpose and expected outcomes.
An agenda brings clarity or purpose to the meeting. Remember, meetings without clear objectives can become purposeless.
So, we need to define the purpose, desired outcomes and have agenda items. This ensures that participants stick to relevant topics.
Meeting length
I have attended long meetings which are fruitless.
Long meetings can lead to participants’ fatigue and reduced focus.
As aforesaid, when we set a clear agenda that reduces the length of the meeting, attendees have an opportunity to think and thrash their ideas beforehand.
Keep meetings very short, preferably under two hours whenever possible.
Lastly, allocate time slots for each topic and consider shorter meeting durations.
Test you tech
Our era demands for meetings online using applications such as ZOOM, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet, among others.
The challenge is usually connectivity issues, software glitches, or hardware problems that disrupt meetings.
The best is to test technology beforehand, have back-up options and provide troubleshooting guidance.
Online meetings could mean there are members in different time zones and co-ordinating those time zones can be tricky.
The organisers must be mindful of global team members and select time slots that accommodate everyone.
Focused points and less meetings
At times, we overload meetings with numerous discussion points. We need to prioritise essential topics. Consider separate sessions for different themes.
Companies can have too many meetings. Back-to-back meetings can exhaust participants and the solution is to schedule fewer and more focused meetings.
Lack of participation
Silent attendees hinder collaboration and there are many reasons why people do not participate in meetings.
Leaders must seek buy-in from members and encourage active participation, ask for input and create a safe space for sharing ideas.
Avoid tangential conversations
Off-topic discussions derail meetings. The solution is to gently steer discussions back to the agenda. Set ground rules for staying on track while being effective.
Avoid open-ended times
State the start and end times of your meeting. Remember, punctuality matters for efficient meetings.
As a leader or chair of that meeting, respect participants’ schedules.
Parting point: Meetings are very important, but they should not eat into production times.
Effective meetings require intentional planning, engagement, agility and adaptability.
As a leader, address these weaknesses and seek advice and training from a professional so as to enhance your company’s meeting culture and productivity.
- Jonah Nyoni is an author, speaker, and leadership trainer. He can be contacted on X @jonahnyoni. WhatsApp: +263 772 581 918