Leading Effective Meetings E-Book

50MINUTES

• Herausgeber: 50Minutes.com
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Serie: Coaching
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 28

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Ready to take your business to the next level? Find out everything you need to know about leading effective meetings with this practical guide.

Meetings are a key part of office life in the 21st century, but frequently last much longer than expected and fail to lead to concrete decisions, leaving participants frustrated and demotivated. Nonetheless, thanks to careful planning, preparation and focus, it is possible to hold productive meetings with engaged participation and effective joint decision-making.

In 50 minutes you will be able to:
• Prepare effectively for any meeting by making sure you have all the necessary materials and information
• Ensure that all participants contribute to the discussion and that time is not wasted in off-topic discussions
• Monitor the outcome of the meeting and ensure that the decisions agreed on are implemented

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Leseprobe

Effective meetings

Issue: how do I ensure that meetings are not a waste of time and that they lead to real decisions?Uses: in a professional setting, it is often necessary to hold a meeting to inform, consult or make decisions. It is therefore vital to go about this properly in order to obtain the desired results.FAQs:Do I really need to plan this meeting?What material should I organise?Who should I invite to my meeting? How many participants should there be?How should I deal with the time factor? How long should my meeting last?What can I do to make sure that everyone participates actively?

In the professional world, all workers are likely to have to lead a meeting at some point. The aim of this guide is to concisely and succinctly answer the questions that commonly arise in this situation.

Passing on information, delivering a training course, consulting partners, voting on changes within the company, etc.: there are plenty of reasons to exchange ideas and collaborate with your colleagues. Several solutions are possible: sending emails, speaking on the phone, talking with each of the people involved, or all getting together around a table to discuss an issue or set a common goal.

Meetings are often seen as the most efficient way of communicating in many cases, such as carrying out training within the company, making a decision or finding out the general opinion. However, because of the way that they bring different participants together, they can soon become time-consuming and turn into a simple discussion if they are not structured to ensure that the group makes progress.

As such, from the preparation to the summary of a meeting, it is essential to give the participants a general framework to make sure that the meeting is effective. This guide will tackle the three main parts of this: the preparation, the meeting itself, and the minutes. We will see how to draw up an agenda and clearly and concisely set out the aims to be achieved, how to best manage communication between participants, and how to follow up to ensure that the decisions made have an impact and to evaluate the actions carried out.

Leading a meeting: the basics

The three stages of an effective meeting

preparing and setting objectivesleading and acting (making decisions)ensuring follow-up and communicating the results.

Preparing for the meeting

Drawing up an agenda

To avoid simply planning a friendly meet-up between colleagues, it is vital that you prepare for the meeting seriously by drawing up an agenda and establishing the objectives to be reached.

The agenda is a plan for how the meeting is going to work which is sent to colleagues to notify them to attend, preferably in written form in order to avoid potential forgetting or misunderstandings and to provide a formal framework for the meeting. It is sent to all participants before the meeting, but it is best not to do this too early or it might be forgotten. It is generally advised to send it around four days before the date set so that everyone has time to take note of it.