Giving notice of a meeting can have several effects. Staff might believe it is an important meeting, a progress meeting, or a meeting where “we are all going to get tasked with extra work”. Effective meetings achieve outcomes. When a meeting inspires each attendee to complete tasks, the meeting is successful. To chair an effective meeting, be aware of several common factors that make meetings more dynamic and fluid.

1. The Invite List

Make sure each invitee knows exactly why the meeting is proposed. Take a firm stand when writing the invitation, composing the purpose for the meeting in the active voice. For example, “Tomorrow’s meeting is about the publishing aspects concerning the printing supply chain” is vague. One of the main issues with this is the resultant parade of invitees, who knock on your door asking why they need to be there. A firmer statement is; “Tomorrow we are meeting to reduce costs in the printing supply chain by actioning ways we can cut costs from the publishing department side of operations.” For the second statement, the staff invited know they are there to come up with ways to cut costs. They will come prepared to innovate and recommend.

2. Meeting Language

During the meeting, adopt firm language. Avoid phrases like ‘we were hoping to’, or ‘we might consider’, or ‘we are just thinking about’, once you hold a meeting. These phrases are appropriate when you are running ideas around before the meeting in the corridors, under informal circumstances. Once you sit in the chair position, language should be ‘we are doing it’, with the only question remaining as to ‘who we are doing it with’. What an effective meeting does is delegate tasks to the ‘whom’.

3. Clear Outcomes

A meeting organiser has clear outcomes in mind. If they do not, they have wasted everyone’s time. No one wants to sit in a meeting they did not need to attend. Unless each person goes away with a task, the meeting is not effective. Having people ‘sitting in’ does not help them ‘learn’ about the organisation. Organisations, that are more effective, let their staff practice passing information down the chain. Meeting outcomes are likely to be met if the right staff have the flexibility to delegate to their departments after the meeting.

4. Personalisation

Describe what each meeting attendee has contributed to the organisation, in as far as this relates to the purpose of the meeting. For example, “we have Robert from accounts here today, to outline the past four years of costs, attributed to the publishing department”. This is important to do when a meeting is called and unfamiliar staff are presented to each other. This method of personalising the organisational role of each attendee avoids silly icebreaker games, and makes the meeting atmosphere task-orientated from the get-go.

5. Credibility

Meeting organisers need results. When you are in charge of a meeting, the most important thing is to come across as having the authority to push for outcomes. Show there is support for the meeting, momentum from senior management, and commitment to the vision. Having absent endorsements from interested parties is most effective. Quoting the CEO, senior team, company report, or industry media article (about your firm) can be an effective way to motivate attendees to complete their allocated meeting tasks.

6. Make it easy

Take the meeting results you need, and break down the steps for each attendee. Many chairs make the error of accidentally front-loading a meeting. The most eager-to-please staff attending (who are usually younger, and less experienced) will grab the first set of tasks, whilst the older, more seasoned pros will sit back to the end. If you need the hand of experience upon certain elements of the meeting’s objectives, say so from the beginning. Make it clear what sort of issues are going to be discussed, and the number of people you need working on each step. If you can distinguish from needing experienced or not so experienced staff at each stage, make this distinction. Later on, you won’t have staff knocking on the door who are struggling with what they said they’d do at the meeting!

7. Take minutes

Record action points, and what was decided about any issues. Everything else you can prepare in advance. The purpose of the meeting, the objectives, and the ideal staffing requirements or task list can be adopted from your meeting preparation notes. It is important to produce an accurate set of minutes with all of the above information recorded, for circulation immediately after the meeting. Everyone who attended will be motivated to get the results you need, if you provide a record of what was decided. Clarifying who is doing each task will be seen as considerate, not pushy.

Holding an effective meeting will save you a lot of time and hassle. If you keep tight control by preparing well, and inviting the right people to the meeting every time, your management objectives will be met. When chairing meetings, use the record of the meeting to measure performance objectives, praise staff for their efforts, and keep your organisation objectives on track.