Essential Questions to Increase Your Meeting Effectiveness

A consistent complaint at EVERY organization is meetings. Which variation is your biggest complaint?

  • Too many meetings
  • I have no idea why a meeting was held
  • Meetings don’t start on time or end on time
  • I get invited to meetings that are a waste of my time

What absolutely fascinates us is that everyone knows what a good meeting is and how to execute one, but for some reason no one has good meetings!
Here are the essential questions to radically renew your excitement for meetings.
Before scheduling a meeting ask:

  • What is the purpose of this meeting? What must get done for it to be a success?
  • Can I accomplish that purpose without scheduling a meeting? Is this meeting necessary?
  • Who needs to attend the meeting and why? How will each attendee contribute to success?

Once you’ve taken the time to answer the questions, create an agenda that explains the purpose, the outcomes, and the value each attendee will provide.
When you attend a meeting ask:

  • What is the intended outcome of this meeting? How will we measure success?
  • How should I be paying attention to what is being shared? Am I listening to learn, listening so I can provide input or listening to make a decision?

HINT – bring the conversation to a conclusion ten minutes before the scheduled ending and ask:

  • What decisions did we make? Document them and share them with attendees.
  • What actions did we agree on? Who is doing which action, by when? For more significant actions, check out our worksheet, Defining W3 Goals.
  • On a scale of one to ten, with 10 being perfect, how was today’s meeting? Get a rating from everyone. Then ask, how can it be improved?

Use these suggestions regularly to stop wasting time and improve the effectiveness of every meeting.

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