Meetings are a necessary part of every lawyer’s workday, but when not managed properly, meetings can waste time and impede productivity. Poorly managed meetings lead to rising levels of frustration, disengagement, meeting fatigue and burnout, all leading to poor performance.
With these 10 action steps, you can make your meetings more productive and engaging.
Is this meeting solely to provide updates, or is this a working meeting to accomplish a specific task or make a decision? What is the goal of the meeting? What is the end result?
Taking the time to identify a specific purpose for the meeting may allow you to eliminate the need for some meetings. For example, if a meeting is simply to provide status updates and no feedback is necessary or required, conveying this information through another channel might eliminate the need for the meeting. Clearly communicating the purpose of the meeting to attendees eliminates confusion and increases engagement.
Similarly, making an effort to define the outcome you want to achieve with the meeting can be extremely helpful in creating the agenda, preparing for the meeting and keeping participants on task during the meeting.
Meetings are less productive when the meeting includes people who have no stake in the outcome of the meeting or cannot contribute to the agenda. It’s easier to default to “everyone” when scheduling a meeting than it is to give some thought to who needs to be present at the meeting and who simply needs to be advised of the outcome once the meeting has been completed.
Who is relevant to the meeting? Who can contribute to the discussion? Whose input or expertise is needed? Must everyone be present for the entire meeting, or can some attendees be excused for portions of the meeting?
Too many people attending a meeting, particularly if those people are distracted, bored, disinterested or attempting to multitask during the meeting can slow down the meeting and make it even more unproductive, even for those who need to attend. Too many people can also impede decision making.
Meetings without an agenda can easily go off the rails. Nothing is more frustrating than blocking out the time to attend a meeting and failing to accomplish the meeting’s goal because some participants were unaware of the topics to be discussed, or the tasks expected to be completed before the meeting and were therefore unable to contribute. Meetings that meander from topic to topic with no direction waste time and energy of the participants.
Creating an agenda lets everyone know exactly what to expect from the meeting and provides each attendee with the opportunity to prepare appropriately for the meeting. Consider posting a question to be answered for each agenda item to help direct meeting discussion.
Give attendees advance notice of the date and time of the meeting so they can plan to attend. Communicate the purpose and expected outcome of the meeting, goals and agenda to all participants. Include any supporting documents needed for the meeting or that you expect participants to have reviewed in advance of the meeting. Let each participant know what their role will be at the meeting. Ask each attendee to respond to confirm their attendance.
It is always a good idea to send a reminder to all participants the day before the meeting to reiterate the date and time, goals and in some cases, the agenda.
Show that you respect the time of all participants and set limits for discussion, with a concrete beginning and ending time for the meeting.
When you consistently start and end meetings on time, it makes it easier for participants to plan their day. When you don’t wait for latecomers to start the meeting, they will quickly learn that they need to be on time in the future. When meetings always end on time, it helps meeting participants stay focused during the meeting since they know when the meeting will be completed.
It is difficult to keep meetings on track when some participants are disengaged. Not only do disengaged participants not contribute to the meeting, but they distract other participants and bring down the energy of the meeting.
If you are not sure that all attendees know one another, start by making introductions, and ensure that remote participants are aware who is in the room. Each person should give their name and indicate what their role in the firm or group is.
To encourage participation, make meetings safe places for people to express their views or offer ideas without judgment or ridicule, but impose limits to ensure one person does not take over the meeting, and that all participants have an opportunity to contribute. Asking different people to take the lead on each item on the agenda can also help increase engagement.
Begin the substance of the meeting by repeating the goal or expected outcome and the scheduled end time for the meeting. This helps orient the participants.
To keep to the agenda and the timeline, suggest that unrelated issues that arise during the meeting be tabled for another time, or ask if participants can extend the scheduled meeting time to address the new issue.
Appoint a meeting facilitator to keep the meeting on track and on time or assign a timekeeper to keep an eye on the clock and remind the facilitator. The facilitator may designate someone to take notes or minutes of the meeting to keep track of decisions made, action steps to be taken and other items.
The facilitator does not need to be the most senior person in attendance at the meeting but needs to command enough respect to be able to control the room and set limits. Allow participants to hold the meeting facilitator accountable for reaching the stated meeting goals.
Before concluding the meeting, summarize any goals that were set and decisions that were made during the meeting and develop an action plan. The action plan may include next steps to be taken, how progress will be monitored and outline deadlines for any tasks to be performed. It is crucial to assign responsibility for those tasks to specific groups or individuals. When clear responsibility for action steps has not been established, everyone can leave the meeting thinking that someone else will be performing those tasks or action steps. And when no deadlines, check-in dates or follow-up plans have been confirmed, meeting action items often end up taking a back seat to other tasks.
Decide whether additional or follow-up meetings will be required and, if possible, schedule them before participants leave the meeting.
Make sure that the main goals and decisions, deadlines, action steps and responsibilities that were determined during the meeting are communicated afterwards—in writing, if necessary—to all participants. Consider whether they need to also be disseminated to those who were not present at the meeting.
Schedule any deadlines in your calendar to follow up with the responsible individuals. If a follow-up meeting has been scheduled, add the action steps and the names of those responsible to the agenda for a progress report.
By developing a meeting strategy and spending more time preparing for meetings, you can improve both meeting productivity and engagement.
