Meetings, meetings, meetings.  It seems that around every corner another meeting is waiting.  Every day in a manager’s life is filled with these gatherings.  Meetings, for the most part, tend to be mind-numbing, rambling, frustration strewn huddles that can humble even the most experienced manager.  There is nothing quite like the assembly of people to ruin a perfectly good workday.  Here’s the good news.  Meetings don’t need to be meaningless, soul-sucking affairs.  Meetings can be, and should be, productive events of teams and co-workers.

Obviously, you may not have influence over all the meetings you attend, but as the manager you do have control over your meetings and those of your team.  Here are a few simple tips to keep your meetings efficient and effective:

Plan Go into your meetings with a plan of what you want to accomplish.  Always have an agenda, and send this agenda out to your team at least 30 minutes prior to the meeting.  Prepare any handouts, slides or training materials in advance and be sure any A/V equipment is ready before the meeting begins.

Engage Good meetings produce energy instead of drain it.  To produce energy, a manager needs to get the team engaged.  Brainstorming is one of the best ways to create action and get the team involved.  Another method of engaging your group is to utilize audio and visual clips.  The internet is a wonderful tool to find creative and fun additions to your topics.  Keep it fun when you can.  Watch how differently your team responds when you engage them.

Focus Stick to the agenda.  Get on task and stay on task.  Your key responsibility when running a meeting is to facilitate effectively.  This includes nipping any poor attitudes in the bud.  Do not let the meeting stray off topic and make sure you are keeping the attention of the group.  New topics should be placed in a “parking lot” to be dealt with later.

Stop Once the agenda has been covered, stop!  Do not let the meeting run overtime.  Never-ending meetings kill morale and productivity.  Stopping is critical to managing meetings.

Follow-up If the meeting is worth having in the first place, then you should have follow-up notes.  The notes may be the action steps decided, the important decisions made or the comments on subjects discussed.  Always thank the attendees.  Good follow-up attests that the meeting was worthwhile and that something was accomplished.

It seems easy when you look at it on paper, but running a good meeting takes practice.  But since you are a manager, you will have plenty of chances to practice…….….tomorrow.