The last thing you want to do in a meeting is over complicate. It will only drain your energy and delegates will lose focus faster.
Try standing up the entire time. The urgency to get their point across will increase and a natural instinct to hurry up and get to the point, will kick in. Someone is more likely to try and finish their point, quicker, if they believe someone is waiting on them.
If you won’t speak in the meeting, don’t attend. The more attendees, the more time spent making sure to get around to everyone. Focus on the situation as a whole, rather than individual tasks. Leave the specific skills required to the working people. For example, let the sales manager decide how to sell as they are the ones with day to day experience. These tactics don’t need to be discussed in your meeting. This can be set up as a smaller team meeting or a 121 with yourself.
Make an agenda to identify the purpose of the meeting and why the matter is so pressing. Setting an agenda allows you to implement decisions, based on your breakdown and make faster decisions. An agenda will allow you to check of decisions along the way, without making each individual thing a separate talking point.
Set your goals before the meeting. Ensure that the expectations are realised by the end of the meeting so delegates will have a goal to motivate them towards. Make sure each individual has their own personal goal because if every team member achieves this, then you are potentially saving yourself needing another meeting, to touch base with the team, later on. Make sure everyone notes down each other’s goals and set up an email chain to notify each other of when this has been achieved.
In update meetings, only allow participants to use one slide only, forcing them to be concise, rather than over complicating their talking point. Create handouts if more details are required or provide emails so others so participants can request elaboration. To make sure participants aren’t including too much information and making it a smaller font, make it a rule to only use a 14 point font or higher.
Provide guidance on how to achieve goals,but do not be overly specific on how to achieve them. Doing so obstruct creativity and it is also unnecessary content to add into a meeting.
Using these helpful tips, you’re almost guaranteed a simple, but productive meeting.
