To determine the purpose, ask yourself if the meeting is designed to inform, to brainstorm, or to gain consensus. Make sure all attendees understand the purpose of the meeting and their role. Communicate the purpose clearly. For regular meetings, it’s also a good idea to remind the team occasionally of the purpose.

The agenda should be shared with everyone in attendance, in advance whenever possible, to give attendees more time to think about what they’d like to contribute. If people don’t know the reason for the meeting, they may be reluctant to contribute. Many people need time to process their thoughts and aren’t comfortable speaking until they’ve had time to think.

Is this meeting one that must be led by a member of the leadership team, or does it make more sense to rotate the leader role among different attendees? Understanding the purpose and subject matter will help make that decision clear. If the responsibility is rotated amongst team members, give ample notice so everyone knows when it’s their turn.

Set the right tone. Everyone is expected to contribute, otherwise they are not adding value and don’t need to be there. Be clear about what participation looks like. When should questions be posed? How should feedback be submitted? Can additional thoughts be shared after the meeting? If so, who should be included in those post-meeting memos? Engagement is essential to productive meetings.

The meeting leader is responsible for arriving and beginning the meeting on time, every time. This emphasizes the importance of the work to be discussed and shows respect for everyone in attendance who also arrived on time. This starts at the top. When the leader arrives late, it sends a message that something else was more important. This dilutes the discipline and quickly spreads to all others in attendance. Once that happens, the meeting rhythm falls apart.

Everyone is busy. Calendars are already full. Canceling a standing meeting because one or more people were unable to attend gives too much weight to those individuals and not enough weight to the importance of the business to be conducted at the meeting. Rescheduling also disrupts the calendars of all other attendees. Anyone unable to attend should be expected to read the minutes or watch the recording, and catch themselves up before the next meeting.

It’s important that the meeting leader refrain from stating their desired outcome at the start of the meeting. Doing so will discourage creativity and alternative ideas and will likely result in the outcome they wanted. When leaders come on too strong at the beginning, those in attendance are left wondering why they needed to attend a meeting if the outcome was already predetermined. Let the team members discuss. Leaders should listen, observe, ask questions, and be open to new approaches and ideas. The leader’s thoughts on the matter should be saved for the end of the meeting.

One person should be asked to listen and watch for agenda creep and tangents. This is what causes meetings to go off the rails and last too long. It should be understood by all in attendance that this person is empowered to call it out on the spot and get the meeting back on track. The purpose of the meeting police is to ensure everyone’s time and attention is respected. The meeting police should also ensure notes are taken or the meeting is recorded. For our team at Vista, our Focus Specialist helps keep us on track during the meeting.

Productive discussions in meetings usually result in steps that need to be taken to move the projects along. Identify one individual (appoint, or they may volunteer,) to own each outstanding task. A target date for completion should be discussed and agreed to at the end of the meeting. Meeting leaders should keep track of those who consistently execute upon their action steps timely and those who don’t.

If the attendees were asked to block out one hour for the meeting, it should end after one hour. This is about respecting the schedules and time commitment of everyone involved. While there are different schools of thought on this, I have found that meetings lasting longer than one hour tend to detract from their achievement. Attention begins to wane and restlessness sets in. If a meeting must go more than an hour, be sure to allow for breaks.