Small business meetings can be a valuable tool to keep your staff well informed, to generate new ideas and to coordinate the decision making process. However, without careful planning, meetings can all too often drift from their key purpose and this can weaken outcomes and damage your business productivity.
Here are some tips to get the most out of your meetings and avoid an unproductive use of time.
Choose the right venue
The venue is key to the success of your meeting. If it involves participants from multiple office locations or departments, it may be best to hire a meeting room venue that is centrally located and easily accessible to the majority of attendees.
Neutral and purpose-designed facilities can yield the best results, as they will offer a range of room sizes and configurations.
Limit participant numbers
Smaller meetings of under ten attendees are often most effective, because there are fewer distractions and they encourage more active participation and engagement. In larger groups, it can be easy for a few dominant personalities to take over, pushing out other voices and perspectives on a situation.
This can lead to groupthink, narrowing down creative growth and potentially losing valuable 360 degree input from different levels or areas of the organisation. Only invite those employees who can make a direct contribution to the meeting; anyone else can be updated with the key points via email or online collaboration platform afterwards.
Have a clear purpose and agenda
Decide what outcome you want to achieve at the end of the meeting, so there is a clear takeaway and actionable next steps. For example, you may want to share information or updates, generate ideas, make decisions, or solve problems. Avoid the temptation to pack too much into one meeting, as this will fatigue attention spans and muddy the outcome.
If there are multiple and clearly separate issues to discuss, book another meeting on a different date. Plan the agenda so that all aspects of the meeting objectives are given equal coverage, and inform the attendees of the agenda in advance so that they will arrive prepared and can make more valuable contributions.
Make use of technology
technology can enhance the quality and productivity of your meeting, so ensure that your venue is equipped with up to date Digital facilities such as LED screens for remote participation and sharing information. You can also use live note-taking apps and task management software to help everything run smoothly.
Encourage balanced participation
Some people naturally prefer to take a back seat and let others do the talking, while others are happy to monopolise the proceedings. To encourage a more balanced participation, put strategies in place beforehand, such as asking participants to brainstorm in pairs and feed back to the larger group, or directly asking each attendee for their input.
You may wish to ask each participant to prepare some of their contribution in advance.