Regardless of your location in Australia if you are a part of the office culture, you are well-versed on the standard office meeting. Everyone sits around the conference table while listening to directives being passed down through the appointed speaker, and if someone is thoughtful enough, the air is filled with the scent of coffee and fresh doughnuts, if it is a morning meeting. By the end of the meeting, every one trails out of the space with a range of emotions, but collective weariness is experienced by most.
While short of ordering up a rock concert, most meetings are supposed to leave attendees feeling a bit tired, even sluggish, if at the end of the day, but the point is to glean something from it, which does not always happen. Organising meetings that are productive begins with capturing and retaining the attention of the attendees, so they will at least listen to topics being covered. The foundational stuff of what makes a meeting successful can make a meeting resonate with the people who attend it.
Continue reading to learn more about the best ways to set the stage for productive meetings.
The Venue
While it seems quite superficial, for people to engage with the subjects being covered, they have to first be comfortable. Premium meeting rooms and boardrooms can provide businesses with comfortable professional-grade office furniture while at the same time providing speakers with equipment and technologies necessary to present. Furthermore, making sure the room’s thermostat is set to a comfortable temperature is another way meeting presenters can ensure the space is comfortable.
Serving treats is optional, but attendees do appreciate being able to munch on something during the meeting, especially if the meeting runs longer than a few hours. A good rule of thumb is to arrive a few minutes early to make sure everything is in place, and first and foremost, make sure the room is open for attendees. Finally, making sure the meeting place is organised, open, comfortable, and ready for the presenter is a major building block in creating a productive meeting.
Meeting Purpose And Planning
The next major part of organising a productive meeting relates to its purpose and planning. Of course, every meeting has a purpose, but it does not necessarily mean organisers should use up their employee’s time unless the meeting is going to cover pertinent information and lasts longer than 30 minutes. Because there is only so much time in the workday, even a short meeting that can be covered in a quick email can cut into the productivity of the whole office, especially when the information can be conveyed through other means.
When planning a meeting, if the meeting is not necessarily required, consider other methods of conveying messages to your employees. Video-conferencing tools, instant chat, and even face-to-face conversations can do the same thing as hauling staff members into a conversation that might not be related to the entire staff. Today’s offices are fitted out with a variety of communications tools that can streamline tasks of the traditional meeting.
Alternatively, if the meeting is required, consider creating an agenda with time limits that designate a few minutes at the beginning as an opener for latecomers, and a few minutes at the end to answer any questions. When creating your agenda, try to focus your discussion around one central point or the meeting can become one where other issues inevitably take centre stage, making the meeting unproductive. Finally, get feedback after the meeting because you do not really know how effective your meeting was without any evaluation.
Organising Productive Meeting
Productive meetings can translate into active listeners and participants. Attendees appreciate the effort that goes into priming the atmosphere to deliver any messages, and more importantly, they know you value their time. Finally, the central goal of delivering the message can actually be accomplished when the stage is set.