Do you have meetings at work? Do you dread every time they come around? Do they tend to go on and on and… on?! It doesn’t have to be this way.
In fact, meetings can be an enjoyable experience for everyone. Now, I know you think I might have gone a little mad, but with a few simple tweaks to your meeting and how it is run, you’ll be having regular meetings that everyone actually looks forward to attending.
Get rid of smartphones
But, we need them?! Well, we do often need our phones, but during a meeting, there’s a high chance you shouldn’t be focused on your Facebook feed anyway. Just in the same way we tell kids to sit at the table and turn their Xbox off to eat dinner, it may be time to tell meeting attendees that their phone needs to stay out of the meeting room. When the phones are removed, the people in the room have nothing else to focus on except what’s in front of them – the meeting! Everyone in the meeting will be forced to stay focused, understand what’s actually happening and who knows, maybe even get to know the people they’re working with!
Prepare for the meeting
Preparation is key when running a meeting. If the lead or moderator comes in late and doesn’t even have an agenda, this only leaves room for a meeting that is probably just made up as it goes along and is therefore probably going to run into your lunchtime. An interesting meeting is one that is well-prepared and at the very least has an agenda. If you run meetings and they’re boring, now is a good opportunity to take a look at how you run them and what may be going wrong. Getting feedback from a co-worker or mentor may help to shed some light on what’s not right if it’s not that obvious to you.
Ask for feedback
When you ask for feedback as to why your meeting is boring, ask your colleagues what they would like to see in their meetings. Every team is different and everyone has a different idea of “fun”. You don’t have to chase everyone down in the office to ask their opinion. It could be as simple as setting up a survey online and sending it via email and asking everyone some simple questions.
“If you could attend a ‘fun’ meeting, what would make it fun?”
“If you could improve our meetings in one way, what would you do?”
once you get some basic thoughts, you may want to ask them for specifics. If they say they want food during the meeting, you could ask them what kind of food. Of course, you’re not going to be able to please every worker and their desire for lobsters at the next meeting, but it may give you a great bit of insight on how to make your meetings more interesting for everyone.
Give workers a set role in the meeting
If everyone has a responsibility for each meeting, they’re more likely to get involved with the process of the meeting and feel like they’re actually a part of something. Perhaps someone is in charge of the equipment used in the meeting and someone else always organises stationary and paper for attendees. You may have someone taking minutes at the meeting and someone organising tea and coffee. Whatever the roles are, they can all help attendees feel like they’re useful and want to get to know more about the meeting process.
Your meeting may be considerably different from another business’s as every business is different. There are different brands and where one meeting may be appropriate at the local pub on a Friday afternoon, other meetings such as board and committee meetings will obviously have a more professional approach.
Have a think about how your meetings are run and the way your business is run. There are plenty of ways to help make your meetings more enjoyable and run more efficiently. One such way is to ensure you have a minute taker to take note of everything that happens throughout the meeting.
For professional meeting minutes, contact Meetings Into Minutes. We offer a professional service for both regular meetings and one-off occasions.
