How many times have you heard the statement “This meeting could have been an e-mail or a text message!” Modern business life sets before us a whole series of daily tasks, which in marketing and communications especially tend to multiply in an unplanned manner. One of the things I always tell my co-workers is not to leave things for tomorrow because you never know what might be waiting for them then. The range of tasks spans in many directions – a new tender, crisis communication, sudden trip, etc. This is precisely why it is always necessary to calibrate processes and identify those that unnecessarily take up too much of our time. Business meetings are definitely the first to hit.
How are meetings even managed?
First of all, go back to the first sentence of this text and carefully evaluate whether such a meeting should take place at all, be it within your organization or at another location. I guarantee you that in at least 50 percent of cases you will understand that communication can be done differently. Otherwise, it is an “event” that should not last longer than 30 to a maximum of 45 minutes. Anything beyond that usually turns into tedious debates from which no conclusions are ever drawn that push the process forward. Why is that so? From my experience, one of the main enemies of productive meetings is the absence of a clear agenda and plan of what the meeting is intended to achieve. This is certainly the first thing that the organizer and leader of the meeting should ensure, and then stick to it without allowing digressions on a whole series of other unnecessary topics. Namely, most people have a “digressive” nature, especially if it is combined with inadequate preparation for the meeting itself, when they look for a way to justify their presence in the room by “expanding” the story. So, here we have already come to the second rule for successful meetings, which implies the preparation of all present for the conversation. In CTA communications, I regularly advise my colleagues to always come to meetings with well-argued ideas, instead of expecting them to magically appear when we all get together. I know from experience that this approach works.
Pareto’s magic formula
I’m a big fan of Vilfredo Pareto’s 80/20 rule, which can be applied to many different aspects of business and life, but is especially effective when it comes to meetings. In order to follow this instruction, it is necessary to structure the story so that at least 80 percent of the most important conclusions are reached in the first 20 percent of the meeting time. In other words, as soon as the traditional introductory chat of 5-6 minutes about the past vacation and health is over, you should get down to business. In this way, you will surely manage to hold a meeting within 30-45 minutes, which I consider the gold standard. At the same time, it is an obligation to draw a clear conclusion for each item on the agenda and to divide the tasks.
Write, specify and take care of deadlines and other people’s time
An old folk saying reads: “A wise man writes, and a fool remembers”. The people who introduced the first meeting minutes were certainly guided by this motto. The goal is not for them to contain several volumes and take up large spaces in yours inbox, but they should certainly be precise in the part where further tasks and obligations are defined, as well as the individuals to whom they are assigned. Of course, with all of this comes clear and feasible deadlines, thus ensuring the smooth flow of all processes and the implementation of projects.
The minimum of business etiquette would be to start and end the meeting at the prearranged time. Respecting other people’s time and your own is definitely something that should be taken care of. By placing ourselves in these time frames, we train ourselves to hold meetings where the 80/20 rule can truly come to life, and participants leave them with clear tasks and a feeling that they did not waste their time. Effectiveness increases rapidly in such cases, but it takes time until you get used to it, that is, for your team to accept such a working principle.
Different tools for collaboration, such as Slack, Trello, Zoom, etc., are a good help in the functioning of the company and also in the implementation of the meeting. By the way, the crisis with the coronavirus should have happened in 2020 for people to realize that a large number of meetings can actually be held online or how much these software can bring good to them. From the very beginning of the company, we set up our story so that we can get involved anywhere in the world, so the transition to online work was not too difficult for us. I would recommend it to everyone, things move much faster then.
In conclusion, all the advice in this text probably seems common sense at first reading, but the point is to ask yourself if you use any of this in your business everyday. I’m willing to bet that each of you has faced some of the challenges we mentioned above, but for which luckily, as we can see, there is a remedy. Try applying some of these and I’m sure you’ll see positive results in no time.
