A recent UK study showed that the average manager spends around 16 hours in meetings each week!

That’s over 800 hours a year – or a grand total over an entire career of 37,440 hours of meetings. That’s eating more than 4 years out of your precious time!

I read an article on talkbusinessmagazine.co.uk yesterday that said senior staff estimate just a third of the time they spend in business meetings helps them do their jobs better, and that less than half the time helps their organisation according to new research from executive leadership coaches That People Thing. Let’s face it, there’s no quicker way to sap morale and productivity than by convening a meeting that fails to produce results.

Here are 5 Top Tips for conducting your meetings in a focused and effective way:-

1.Have a  good reason to meet

It’s counterproductive to hold a meeting just because you think it’s too long since people all got together. If the meeting no longer serves a useful purpose, drop it.

We’re really talking here about those standing, regular meetings that we all have. Every 3 months of so review your routine meetings with a critical eye towards reducing the frequency of meeting, reducing the number of attendees or eliminating the meeting altogether.

Determine what you’d like the gathering to achieve. If your objectives can be addressed with a few one-to-one conversations or emails, hold off on an all-hands meeting until there’s a genuine need for one.

2.Have an agenda

An agenda for the meeting will keep it on track.  Everyone’s time is too valuable for every meeting to become an open forum.

Putting together an agenda helps you assess beforehand what you hope to get out of the meeting.

Once you’ve decided what your goals are – and the related matters you wish to review and discuss – distribute the agenda to meeting participants. Be sure to give everyone enough time to prepare their thoughts and contributions.

3.Decisions NOT information

Use meetings to make decisions NOT to circulate information.

We all hate showing up for a meeting only to be given a pack of information that we then get lectured on! The problem with this approach is that while the author is talking about information on page 1, the attendees are thumbing through to page 10 – no one is paying attention to the speaker!

Distribute any information before the meeting so participants have time to review and digest the information. Once the meeting begins, you can then start immediately with a productive discussion that leads to a decision or further action.

4. Have a Chairperson

Someone needs to take charge of the meeting. They need to start and end the meeting on time, keep everyone on topic, and move things along to the agreed agenda.

Also appoint a timekeeper and a note-taker.

Ask one person to watch the clock and either signal you when the discussion runs long or give them the authority to politely intervene. If you say, “We’ve got five minutes left to cover this topic,” the timekeeper’s presence will ensure people believe you. Ask another attendee to take notes.

5.End on time

Let’s meet, discuss what we have to, make our decisions and move on.

It’s up to the Chairperson to make sure all meetings end on time. One way to end meetings on time is to schedule meetings close to lunch – and don’t have anything available for people to eat. This will focus their minds – hunger will take over and the meeting will more than likely finish on time as a result!

BAN ELECTRONIC DEVICES! When employees will bring laptops, smartphones and other devices to meetings, they force whoever is holding the discussion to compete for their attention. Issue a comprehensive ban on ‘electronic grazing’ during the time you are together.

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