A meeting is where a group of
people come together to discuss issues, to improve communication, to promote
coordination or to deal with any matters that are put on the agenda and to help
get any jobs done. For any meeting to be successful it needs the support of the
group involved, or the organization behind it and it must have the intention of
achieving some goal or objective.
Meetings are held for any of
the following reasons:
·
To sort out any
conflicts.
·
To negotiate a
contract or agreement, or matters to do with it.
·
To deal with a
current problem within the group or within the business or organisation.
·
To receive a
report for assessment and review.
·
To supply
information to those present or to canvas views of those present on the
particular matter at hand.
1.
Meeting Purposes
- Analysis, highly complex situations may require multiple
subject matter experts. Frequently experts have their own vernacular or
vocabulary, and a meeting is appropriate to homogenize understanding and
agreement. Have you ever run a meeting with PhD engineers and creative
marketing folks together? Sometimes it sounds like they are from different
planets.
- Assignments, structured meetings or workshops provide an
excellent means of building agreement around roles and responsibilities.
When using the FAST technique, you can leave the meeting with a consensually
built GANTT chart, estimation of resource requirements, and approximation
of budget needs.
- Decision-Making, since resources typically fall short of the
demands, prioritization is critical for high group performance. No team
has the time or resource to do everything. Consensual understanding around
prioritization provides one of the best justifications for hosting a
meeting or workshop.
- Idea Generation, the reason that groups are smarter than the
smartest person in the group is because groups create more options than
simply aggregating the input of participants. Many of the best ideas did
not walk into the meeting; rather they were created during the meeting,
based on stimulation from others.
- Information Exchange, by far and away the most common reason for
meetings is also one of the worst possible reasons for justifying a
meeting. With instant access and electronic filing cabinets, coming
together face-to-face is a very expensive way to exchange information. A
better justification would be to address questions about clarity,
agreement, and omissions of related information or the impact the
information ought have on the behavior of participants.
- Inspiration and Fun, meetings can be effectively used to both reward,
incent, and incite but usually on a large-scale that involve complimentary
events or sessions that also involve learning and building teamwork.
- Persuasion, probably the worst reason for holding a meeting
is to convince other people to change their behavior. There are three
primary forms of persuasion; namely identification (eg, advertising),
internalization (ie, long-lasting), and forced-compliance (ie, “gun to the
head”). Meetings are sub-optimal for all three forms of persuasion, and
therefore are rarely successful at persuasion.
- Relationships, simply pulling together people face-to-face
provides the glue that can pull people together and get them to work more
cooperatively. Frequently venting, or managing conflict, can result in
increased effectiveness. Probably the best time to invest in face-to-face
meetings is when people don’t agree with each other and need to both
reconcile their points of view and agree to move on.
2.
Types of
Meeting
a. Status Update Meetings, it
is one of the most common meeting types. This category includes regular team
and project meetings, where the primary goal is to align the team via updates
on progress, challenges, and next steps. Commonly found group activities in
these kinds of meetings are problem solving, decision making,
prioritization, and task assignment.
b. Information Sharing Meetings, The primary
goal of these meeting is for the speakers to share information with the
attendees. This could be information about things
like upcoming changes, new products and techniques, or in depth
knowledge of a domain. Visual communication tools, like slides and videos, are powerful tools for
making the shared information more memorable. Presentations,
panel debates, keynotes, and lectures are all examples of information sharing
meetings.
c. Decision Making
Meetings, the vast
majority of business decisions are made by groups in meetings. While small
decisions are made in all kinds of meetings, the more important decisions often
get their own dedicated meetings. There are different types of group decision making processes, and care
should be taken to choose a process that best matches the situation. A decision
making process can include group processes like information gathering and
sharing, brainstorming solutions, evaluating options, ranking
preferences, and voting.
d. Problem Solving Meetings, are perhaps the most complex
and varied type of meetings. Whether the meeting is addressing an identified
problem, or it is focusing on creating strategies and plans to navigate the
future, there are a rich arsenal of group processes that can be used. Scopes
and priorities need to be defined, opportunities and threats need to be
identified, and possible solutions should be brainstormed, evaluated, and agreed upon.
e. Innovation Meetings, innovation
meetings and creative meetings often start with thinking outside the box,
by brainstorming,
associating, and sharing ideas in a broad scope. Meeting participants can then
use various techniques and processes to reduce the diverse pool of
ideas to a more focused short list. Through ranking, evaluations, and decision
making the most suitable idea, or ideas, are identified, and
recommendations and tasks can be assigned based on this.
g. Team Building Meetings, all meetings
should contribute to team building, strengthening relationships and corporate
culture. However, now and then team building activities should be
the main focus for a meeting. This category include meetings like include
all-hands meetings, kick-off meetings, team building outings, and corporate
events. Have participants feel like essential parts of their unit, team,
department, branch, and company has all kinds of positive impact on their
engagement, performance, and satisfaction.
3. Good Meeting
a. Begin with the end in mind
(Covey): Before
you schedule a meeting, it’s useful to share what you hope to achieve with
those who will be attending the meeting. There are three basic reasons for
meetings: decision-making, information-sharing, and “idea-floating.” Information-sharing
and idea-floating meetings can often be streamlined with an advance email that
contains background information. Circulation of a “pros and cons” memo, shared
in advance of an idea-floating meeting, can help focus the discussion and spark
ideas to overcome barriers to implementing a good idea. If the goal of your
meeting is a decision, be sure that those with the power to move an idea
forward are present and well-briefed so the question presented at the meeting
is “ripe” for a decision. Think hard whether a face-to-face meeting is
necessary. There is no question that in-person meetings are most effective for
reaching consensus. Meeting in person also offers the ability to draw out
feedback in greater detail and with more nuance than is possible through email
or webinars. But if the purpose of the meeting is mainly to exchange ideas,
(i.e., information sharing and idea floating) consider alternatives to sit-down
meetings.
b.
Make
your objective clear. A meeting must have a specific and defined purpose. Before you send that
calendar invite, ask yourself: What do I seek to accomplish? Are you alerting
people to a change in management or a shift in strategy? Are you seeking input
from others on a problem facing the company? Are you looking to arrive at a
decision on a particular matter? Standing meetings with vague purposes, such as
“status updates,” are rarely a good use of time.
c.
Consider who is invited. When you’re calling a meeting, take time to think
about who really needs to be there. If you’re announcing a change, invite the
people who are affected by the announcement. If you’re trying to solve a
problem, invite the people who will be good sources of information for a
solution. When people feel that what’s being discussed isn’t relevant to them,
or that they lack the skills or expertise to be of assistance, they'll view
their attendance at the meeting as a waste of time.
d.
Stick to your schedule. Create an agenda that lays out everything you
plan to cover in the meeting, along with a timeline that allots a certain
number of minutes to each item, and email it to people in advance. Once you’re
in the meeting, put that agenda up on a screen or whiteboard for others to see.
This keeps people focused.
e.
Start on time, end on time. If you have responsibility for running regular
meetings and you have a reputation for being someone who starts and ends
promptly, you will be amazed how many of your colleagues will make every effort
to attend your meetings. People appreciate it when you understand that their time
is valuable. Another note on time: Do not schedule any meeting to last longer
than an hour. Sixty minutes is generally the longest time workers can remain
truly engaged.
f.
Ban technology. The reality is that if people are allowed to bring
iPads or BlackBerries into the room, they won't be focusing on the meeting or
contributing to it. Instead, they’ll be emailing, surfing the web, or just
playing around with their technology. Eyes up here, please
4.
Characteristic Of A
Successful Meeting
Want
to bring back the magic to your organization’s meetings? Here are ten
fundamental concepts that characterize an effective meeting.
a.
Start with the
definition. A meeting is a business
activity where select people gather to perform work that requires a team
effort.
b.
A meeting, like
any business event, succeeds when it is preceded by planning, characterized by
focus, governed by structure, and controlled by a budget.
c.
Short meetings
free people to work on the essential activities that represent the core of
their jobs. In contrast, long meetings prevent people from working on critical
tasks such as planning, communicating, and learning.
d.
Three things
guarantee an unproductive meeting: poor planning, lack of appropriate process,
and hostile culture. Effective leaders attend to all of these to create an
effective meeting.
e.
Effective
meetings require sharing control and making commitments.
f.
The ultimate
goals of every meeting are agreements, decisions, or solutions. Meetings held
for other reasons seldom produce anything of value.
g.
Unprepared
participants will spend their time in the meeting preparing for the meeting.
h.
It is better to
spend a little time preparing for solutions than to spend a lot of time fixing
problems.
i.
Meetings are an
investment of resources and time that should earn a profit.
j.
A meeting can be
led from any chair in the room. And if it’s your meeting, you want it to be
your chair.
And
these four are powerful ground rules to help ensure successful meetings are:
a.
Be prepared for
discussion
b.
Everyone
participates
c.
Stick to the
agenda
d.
Reach closure or
consensus whenever possible
Sources
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/forbesleadershipforum/2014/02/05/seven-steps-to-running-the-most-effective-meeting-possible/amp/
www.startrungrow.com/information/business/1,2383,purpose-of-meetings.htm
https://www.google.com/amp/s/mgrush.com/blog/2013/02/14/meeting-purposes/amp/
http://dianagabriel.com/10-characteristics-of-effective-meetings/
http://msue.anr.msu.edu/news/characteristics_of_successful_meetings
http://meetingsift.com/the-six-types-of-meetings/
