Don't Let Your Meetings Fizzle. Be Sure to End Strong for Maximum Productivity
While having a good opening and sticking to an agenda is important, the best meetings have a strong finish as well.
As a coach, I spend the majority of my time facilitating meetings with senior leadership: upwards of 200 to 300 meetings a year. And over that time, I've learned a few tricks.
There are many good meeting habits. At the top of my list is having an agenda: basically a list of topics and decisions. Having a good facilitator is also a great way to boost a meeting. And there are opening conversations and ground rules as well.
However, the one thing I see most meetings get wrong is the ending. Failing to properly wrap up a meeting can be a huge mistake. Without a proper close, all of the hard work that went into your meeting will likely fizzle.
Most meetings end by people trying to cram in one more topic or by people excusing themselves to make other appointments, leaving things half-baked. Instead, take 5-10 minutes at the end of your meetings to cover these five items--you're sure to see an improvement.
1. Identify anything that wasn't covered.
It's often the case that you don't get to everything on your agenda. And if you use a parking lot (which I highly recommend), you'll have new items that need to be processed. At the end of your meeting, be sure to walk through your list of open topics and decide if they need to be on the agenda for the next meeting. You can also assign owners to work on them between meetings to keep the process going.
2. Review action items and commitments.
A good meeting has several action items and commitments. I recommend that you track them during the meeting. Either assign someone to be a scribe who can take notes or record them yourself on the wall or a whiteboard. Capturing action items and commitments is one of the keys to a great meeting.
At the end of a meeting, I like to review everyone's takeaways and next steps. This will help make sure everyone is on the same page as to who is doing exactly what and by when. I can also check my notes and make sure everything was captured. By reviewing people's commitments at the end in front of the group, you further instill a sense of ownership and accountability to the group.
3. Confirm decisions and next steps.
Every meeting has at least a handful of decisions. These can be both big and small. The challenge is to have every decision lead to both an action plan and a communications plan. Too often, teams make decisions but then don't act on them or fail to tell the people who are directly affected.
At the end of the meeting, walk through the decisions that have been made and make sure there is an owner and an action plan for each. Also, confirm who else needs to be notified about the decision that's been made. A lot of organizational drama is caused by decisions being made by one group and another group not being informed.
4. Discuss changes and improvements.
One of the habits of highly effective organizations is developing a culture of continuous improvement. They know they can be better, and they make a focused effort to constantly find ways of improving.
End your meetings with a quick review of what went well in the meeting and what didn't. Bake in the things that have proved effective for the team so you don't lose that value. And then identify one or two things you want to do differently next time. These small improvements will add up over time.
5. Confirm the date and time of the next meeting.
Finally, make sure the next meeting is on the books. Don't leave the meeting hoping someone will figure out the schedule later. While you have people in the room, open up the calendars and find the next date. Better yet, if this is a regular meeting, establish a standing date and time so that it's in the calendars going forward automatically.
Meeting habits are key to organizational effectiveness and a core part of any business. And while many people complain of being in too many meetings, the truth is that they are in too many bad meetings.