Why do meetings matter

Time-starved teams need more than directionless chatter or meant-to impress progress reports. Productive meetings depend on clearly defined objectives toward which people can work and against which they can measure progress. For example, if the weekly get-together with your staff members has become the bane of your existence and theirs , insist that everyone—yourself included—pare down her report to actionable issues.

Terrence, from the first example, would not have missed the one meeting he did care about—and where his presence would actually have been beneficial—if his company better prepared for and communicated about meetings.

It turns out he had cost figures and survey results that would have compelled the opposite decision. Even if she had forgotten to invite Terrence, if she routinely circulated the agenda in advance to all managers, Terrence would have known what was coming. Then he could have lobbied to join the meeting or at least sent an e-mail to his boss with the vital information. Streibel suggests spending 30 to 60 minutes preparing for meetings you are responsible for organizing or leading.

Distribute a precise, time-conscious agenda, and assemble the right people. Make sure that participants know they may leave when the meeting turns to affairs not relevant to their portfolios. Thorough advance work can produce a surprising, and welcome, decision. A driver who meanders off course will take longer to reach his destination than one who heads directly from A to B. The same applies to meetings, which often take far longer than necessary because participants digress.

Several simple tactics can make meetings as brief and efficient as possible. Increase engagement with your attendees throughout an event. Featuring event notifications, expense reimbursements, travel confirmations, agendas and more. Gain instant access to your event details with our event management app. Includes real-time deviations, attendee registration metrics and more. Deliver training content, capture the live event for those unable to attend and create assessments to validate comprehension.

Colors and MTA. We asked the team of event pros at Miller Tanner Associates why internal meetings matter. Our team members share their perspectives on how internal meetings over in-office meetings can be beneficial to the overall health of an organization.

I believe there is no better money spent than meeting face-to-face when it comes to being part of a team, whether leading or supporting a company, department, or team. In most companies, the cost is an issue when bringing people together so you have to make the most of the limited time. However, I have seen first hand that it pays dividends for building team morale, allowing everyone to enjoy celebrating successes together, nurturing a virtual work environment, and driving comradery.

The team walks away feeling appreciated, heard, valued, and supported to name a few positive outcomes. These types of meetings also provide opportunities for employees to intermingle among departments or regions and it can help the morale and culture when a company puts their money back into their employees.

It creates a great sense of purpose. It might be out of style to invest in company culture or its team, outside of salaries and benefits, but at Miller Tanner Associates MTA I believe that creating a strong company culture yields a strong, successful company.

Company cultures are built on creating positive, memorable company experiences. The face-to-face experience offers tangible and intangible experiences. Tangibles are generally captured by industry standards such as training ROI metrics, attendance ratios or other measurements. Intangibles are captured by client cultures or the audience value system. Values are subjective and harder to measure but are just as valid an outcome as it goes toward addressing the human quotient of any business. Whether we like attending them or not, meetings are pillars of the corporate world.

Yet despite their importance, we are, much of the time, doing them wrong. Poorly organized , too frequent, no clear takeaways, and so on. More than 10 million business meetings are held every day in the United States.

Is that a useless stat? For meetings, this requires selecting the right attendees, choosing the right time and place, knowing what to cover and just as importantly what not to , and then steering the discussion accordingly. And remember that a big part of this is also about managing stress in general, which we are in dire need of here in the Middle East. Evidence of this can be seen in a recent workplace survey by Towers Watson, where work-life balance was cited as the biggest factor at play in the rising stress levels seen across the region.

How many of us are playing constant catch up on our work duties because of all the time spent in meetings? Research tells us that the more meetings employees attend, the more fatigued and under pressure they feel, which translates into less productivity on the whole— and as mentioned at the outset, that itself can translate into huge cumulative costs for a company.

For the more complex issues, people may need time to reflect on things in advance, which could even involve carrying out research. Give them the chance to do so by providing upfront materials, and they will then be in the best possible position to contribute during your meeting. Without the direction provided by a good agenda and a strong facilitator to provide the necessary structure to the meeting, people can wander off topic, or not contribute at all. The solution? Sending out mass invites and cramming the room with bodies is not a good idea.

You need to invite those who are key to the issue or who will add value with their knowledge or experience — the rest can get a summary afterwards if even necessary. Again this goes back to the mention above about the total economic cost of meetings. Sounds about right. A no-brainer, right? Late arrivals create instant awkwardness and the potential for constant disruption, with the facilitator often having to stop and recap what was said so far. The ideal way to solve this is to let it be known that your meetings always start at the communicated time and anyone not there on time will have to skip it.

So as not to make it sound too harsh, simply communicate in the email invite that you understand there may be legitimate reasons for showing up late, but in such a case —out of respect for the others— we do not want to have interruptions caused by late arrivals. We want people to speak their minds and put forth their opinions, but it is key to set the right tone and make sure a challenge to an idea does not come off as being rude, personal, or offensive in any manner.

Paying no attention to how long the meeting is booked for or due to run, she wraps up as soon as possible each time by calling the meeting the minute the final point is covered.