One of the biggest problems with most business meetings is that they take away from the productivity of the employees. When your meetings are boring and unproductive, you are throwing away money on employee salaries while they sit in the meetings and begin side discussions to fill in the time. The objective of the business meeting should be to help teach the employees how to first solve a problem, communicate information to give them the tools to do that effectively, and then allow everyone present to simply brainstorm. When the employees are unclear of the intentions at business meetings, the meeting will many times go wildly off track. Here are some simple techniques you can implement so your internal business meetings are more productive.
1. The meeting should always be about solving a need. Quickly bring this to the attention to all at the meetings so everyone is on the same page as to the overall outcome. Make certain that this objective is mentioned throughout the meeting to keep people from losing focus.
2. Take however long that you normal run your business meetings and simply cut that time in half. When you cut the time, you force everyone in attendance to have laser focus. If the meeting does run a little longer it is much easier to add on a few minutes.
3. The biggest distraction at business meetings are mobile devices. Phones ringing, social media alerts, tweets, instant messages, and program updates all make sounds that can easily take away from the focus of the meeting. Either all devices get turned off or left outside of the meeting to make the meetings more productive.
4. Often the way the meeting begins can set the tone for the entire time your group is assembled. Make sure to start off with high energy and smiles to get your message across more powerfully. Because the meetings are much shorter now, everyone will be able to start off on the right foot and carry it through to the end.
5. Double the amount of time that your teams does brainstorming at these business meetings. Boring power point presentations and long winded speeches will drain the creativity of the attendees. Let them get down and dirty in longer brainstorming sessions and your meetings will be far more productive in the end.
6. Allow every member of the meeting to participate in one way or another. Poll the group, ask questions, and get input from each member to keep the meeting moving along more productively.
7. When you praise a member of the meeting it goes a long way in raising their self esteem and their contributions in the company. Putting individual achievements on display during the business meeting will give employees confidence and recognition that their input is of value.
8. Once the meeting is over it is a great idea to constantly ask those members for their input about the meeting and the way the company runs in general. These individual responses can help to determine exactly where your staff feels the company is going, and is great topics of discussion for future meetings.
Implement a few of these techniques in your business meetings and you will see production go up within the company in a short time.
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