5 Steps Toward More Effective Meetings
We’ve all been in too many meetings where we left thinking, “This could have been an email” or asking, “What did we even accomplish? ”The good news is, spending more time in preparation will make for more effective meetings. Things like determining the meeting’s purpose and planning accordingly will set your team up for success, and leave the meeting feeling accomplished and armed with next steps.
At 33Vincent, our Executive Assistants have planned and executed thousands of effective meetings, both for the executives they support and within our own team. With our vast experience, we’ve gathered our best advice to help you plan more effective meetings too!
Step #1 - Determine the Meeting’s Goal
You should always start by asking: “What is the purpose of this meeting?” Starting here will help you determine 1) if the meeting is really necessary, and 2) whether an in-person or virtual meeting is best. If you’re trying to nail down an answer from just one person, a quick phone call or email will suffice. Want to get some collaborative feedback on a deliverable? The comments feature of Google Docs, one of our favorite tools, is great for that. Need to circulate information that requires no specific action step? An email will do just fine! Use these tools to avoid the pitfall of too many meetings.
But if the goal is brainstorming, engaging in open discussion, team-building, or sharing information that requires specific follow-up action steps, a meeting can be very helpful. Identify the goals of your effective meetings ahead of time, and build from there.
Step #2 - Invite the Right People to Achieve Your Goal
Once you’ve determined the meeting’s goal, identify which key players will help you achieve it. After pinpointing these individuals, make sure that they are actually available to attend the meeting. You don’t want to be sitting in the meeting/Zoom room, going through the motions, only to realize that the key decision makers or information holders are absent.
This is where an Executive Assistant can help you increase the impact of your meetings (and alleviate burden). By having your Executive Assistant coordinate schedules and identify a time that works best for all key players, you can make sure the right people are there to get the job done. By blocking off the time on everyone’s calendars, you can ensure that everyone has the time reserved to attend, and the time needed to prepare. And if a conflict comes up, which it will, you can reschedule for a time when it works for everyone, or determine if alternate plans—like sending a proxy or providing a video update beforehand— need to be made.
Step #3 - Determine What Needs to Be Accomplished Ahead of the Meeting
If the purpose of the meeting is to brainstorm a particular topic, it’s helpful to have questions prepared beforehand. Avoid awkward silence and daunting stares by giving attendees the opportunity to review the questions in advance so they can come prepared with thoughts. Or, is there a document or report that would be beneficial for them to review prior? Be sure to send that out with ample time to review.
With any “pre-work” for the meeting, it’s helpful to let attendees know how much time they can expect engaging in this work prior to the meeting so they can carve it out accordingly. Bonus: if they have an Executive Assistant, that assistant can block this time on their calendar so they’re sure to have it reserved and show up prepared for an effective meeting!
Step #4 - Create an Agenda and Send it Out
You’ve likely heard it said, “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” This saying rings true with meetings. If you fail to have a plan of action, or agenda, for your meeting, you’ll likely waste time meandering from topic to topic, getting off course, and end up in the “too many meetings” hole. In fact, having a detailed agenda can decrease the time spent in the meeting by up to 80%!
When creating your agenda, break down what needs to happen during the meeting in order to achieve your established goal. Identify what information needs to be shared, and who is best suited to share it. It’s also helpful to include space (and a time limit, for that matter) for welcomes and introductions. That way, it’s easy to break from the small talk and jump right into the discussion that will help you achieve your goal. Be sure to also allow time for fielding any questions, identifying action steps, and summarizing the meeting to ensure everyone is on the same page.
Once the agenda is created, send it out to everyone ahead of time. This will give any speakers time to prepare the information to be shared. The agenda is also a great place to link relevant documents or list pre-work questions to review. Be sure to note when sending the agenda that pre-work is expected and how much time to allot for that. Again, an Executive Assistant can be very impactful here by gathering this information, putting it together in a functional format, and distributing it to all attendees ahead of time.
Step #5 - Identify a Meeting Leader and Note Taker
By ensuring that there is a focused leader who is responsible for guiding the attendees through the agenda, you can help everyone stay on track and avoid chasing tangents that can make for too many meetings that are unfocused or long. Many times this leader will be the same person that set the meeting and created the agenda but if not, make sure that person knows that they are responsible for leading the meeting.
It’s also helpful for this leader to be mindful of the time (or appoint a timekeeper) to keep the attendees moving from topic to topic in a timely fashion. By setting time limits for each section of the meeting, the leader can ensure that you’ll reach the end of the agenda in the allotted time, having accomplished your meeting’s goal. We recommend having the meeting’s leader frame the agenda at the start of the call, saying something like: “We’ve got some great agenda items to get through today. We appreciate you all helping us stick to our end time and stay on track, while still having a great discussion.”
The meeting leader can also take notes or appoint a note taker. This is a great place to involve your Executive Assistant as well. A note taker is pivotal for summarizing key information and, most importantly, action steps so that all attendees (or those who are unable to attend, for that matter) know what was discussed and what needs to happen once everyone leaves the room.
Ready to create more effective meetings and elevate their impact? Enlist the help of an Executive Assistant! Let’s talk about how a 33Vincent EA can support you.
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