10 Ideas for Better Team Meetings

Meetings can be a challenge, keeping them interesting and focused is not always easy. But when they’re done right they are vitally important. They provide alignment, allow team members to contribute, and most importantly can encourage innovative ideas and solutions to big problems.

There are a lot of objections to meetings but when best practices are followed they bring tremendous value. Part of a Leader’s role is to join meetings and ensure productive conversations take place and important decisions are made.

---

A quick message from a Newsletter friend:

🦉Market Hedwig is a highly-rated platform where investors have access to 5-minute weekly financial articles created by ex-investment bankers, who summarize key market news from a professional finance perspective, including opinions across various asset classes. Subscribe now

---

So what are some of the best practices you could adopt to improve your Meetings?

1. Purpose - ensure every meeting has a purpose, why are you and your team downing tools and connecting together? Ensure the purpose and goals of the meetings are clear from the outset.

2. Meeting Norms - agree with your team on what the expected behaviors and standards are for the meeting. These are important to ensure alignment and consistency. Some examples:

   • Arrive on time

   • It’s about getting it right, not being right

   • Come with an open mind

   • Challenge your colleagues with the right spirit and intend

   • Treat everyone with respect and dignity

   • Actively Listen

3. Agenda Document - you should have a shared agenda document that all team members have access to and can add items to. Everyone should review ahead of the meeting so they know what’s been tackled.

Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash

4. Who’s Meeting - the meeting should not be the Leader’s meeting, it’s the team’s meeting. The leader or the host is just there to facilitate the meeting, ensure the agenda is being covered and completed within time. When it becomes someone’s meeting, the team loses interest.

5. Participation - as the meeting is not your meeting, ensure you’re inviting people to speak and participate. You may ask team members to cover specific topics or even invite special guests. This keeps things interesting and helps the team feel that it’s their meeting and not your meeting. Try and speak 20% of the time and leave the other 80% to the team to ensure they get enough air time.