Meetings can be beneficial for many reasons, but if they’re not well organized and designed to accomplish a specific purpose, they can be counterproductive.
The following mistakes often are made by businesses and organizations at their meetings:
- Having a meeting for no good reason: Sometimes, communicating online to employees or speaking with some of them individually are better options.
- Not honoring people’s time: One helpful tip is circulating material that will be discussed at a meeting before it happens.
- Bad timing: It’s not wise to schedule a meeting when people are hungry or urgently trying to meet deadlines (unless the meeting is directly relevant to the deadline work).
- Failing to consider the cost: Some meetings simply aren’t worth the investment, and others easily could be shortened to allow employees more time to accomplish their work. And in some cases, the number of employees at meetings could be reduced; those present can pass along to others what is communicated.
- Neglecting to follow up: If specific timelines and courses of actions aren’t established, potentially valuable meetings don’t accomplish much.
- Getting sidetracked: Meetings sometimes veer off of the original focus, which wastes time and thwarts addressing the issues at hand.
- Not valuing those present and not allowing for different opinions: Employees respond best in meetings if they feel they are valued and that their points of view are respected.
