Sometime back Verizon commissioned the Meetings in America study to gain a better understanding of meeting trends and the needs of its customers. Study provides some very good insights on how meetings are perceived and includes interesting stats such as:
- 91% of professionals admit to daydreaming in meetings,
- 95% say they miss either all or part of meetings,
- 75% say they bring other work to meetings and
- 39% say they have actually dozed off during a meeting
- 92% on the positive side, value meetings as providing an opportunity to contribute, suggesting that successful meetings may be a contributing factor to employee job satisfaction.
Even though above study seems specific to United States, it applies globally as well. To have a productive meeting, consider the following guidelines.
- Define purpose of the meeting
- Consider who needs to be invited
- Email goal(s) wise agenda well in advance
- Arrive 5 minutes early for the meeting
- Start and end meeting on time
- Come prepared for the meeting especially if you are the host
- Take notes or identify someone to take notes
- Set expectations to switch off or keep smartphones on mute during the meeting
- Share all relevant data for the meeting ahead of time
- Be brief and concise during the course of the meeting
- Encourage participants to share their thoughts without interruption
- Encourage everyone to participate in the meeting
- Respect people’s thoughts so if needed, disagree without being disagreeable
- Direct the conversations to encourage participants remain focused on topic(s)
- Silence is perceived as an agreement when an opinion is needed
- No side conversations or comments should be encouraged
- Challenge ideas rather than people
- Agree on actionable items before wrapping up the meeting
- Summarize main points discussed in the meeting and
- Follow up with an email including minutes of meeting
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