How to make a meeting effective

Morning briefings, weekly meetings, or board meetings can be a foundation for company growth as well as a waste of time. A catalyst for change or a routine with dull faces of colleagues.

Signs of an ineffective meeting model

1. The presentations take turns in the form of a report-monologue, after which everyone goes off to work. While an employee is speaking, the others have time to check their messages, surf social media, and just think about life. The manager gets some benefit in the form of awareness of the functioning of individual parts, but it doesn’t solve any issues.
2. The top manager sets tasks as a whole and for everyone, the employees silently take notes. No one knows why they have to gather for this.
3. A rich plan is formed, but a heated discussion of 1-2 questions exhausts the time of the meeting and sometimes half the working day. There are more questions than answers, everyone goes away unsatisfied.
4. A gathering of unruly and unfriendly important birds. Often when meeting leaders of different groups, managers of departments, directors of a large corporation. Strong energy needs to be channeled in the right direction, only then will it be creative. If the head is unable to bring people with great potential together to solve common problems, the meeting can only intensify the problems.
5. Manipulative goals on the part of management. Showy “scolding” or “praise,” intimidation, false motivation, and direction of work according to a strictly defined plan. A mini-dictatorship with maximum damage to all parties.

Effective meeting – the concept of result

The denial of the wrong model is not yet a ready-made new one. Therefore, the only purpose and at the same time the concept of this habitual service event is a solution. A practical model called RESOLVE.

• R – Regulated (). The key to any meeting is the management of its constituent parts. Actual Standing Orders. Clear statement of the main questions and arbitration behavior in discussions.
• E – Enchain (). As a rule, the meeting and is necessary for people from different departments or divisions to stop being isolated and create a teamwork on topical issues.
• S – Structurated (). For questions, tasks, and time. The structure should be fixed, clear, convenient and useful.
• – Open to discuss (). If a working event is called a meeting, it must live up to its name. Monologues to the emptiness of the conference room should be replaced by the lively involvement of each participant. This is a general brainstorming session and an opportunity to discuss together both global issues and small problems of each.
• L – large-minded (). During the discussion, employees united for common goals should not become opponents. They should boldly express their point of view, present arguments, but also listen carefully to what others think about it.
• V – Valued opinion (). A general meeting is not an occasion for self-parody, or, on the contrary, for useless recitation of your reports. Starting to speak, the employee takes into account that every minute of his time is an opportunity to make a significant contribution to the development of the project or the company.
• E – Effective (). Provided all the other points are met, this becomes the result of the right concept and model. The effectiveness of the meeting is evaluated objectively by the indicators that occur from the time of completion to the next meeting.

How to calculate the time to implement the RESOLVE model

When a meeting truly contains a discussion between the valuable thoughts of a united team around a single problem, it is difficult to manage the structure. To accurately calculate meeting time, you need to be guided by the current state of affairs. Not considering 5-minute meetings, but speaking of serious meetings, the time can be this:

1. There are no more than nine items on the agenda.
2. 1 central question takes 20% of the time, the rest 10% each.

Assumed number of active participants and speakers no more than 15 people + lead manager, director.

The leader should not take more than 1 minute for each item to raise a problem and bring it up for discussion. (9 minutes).

The first question is up to 2 minutes, but no more than 20 minutes for all. That is, 10 people will participate in the discussion. Based on the principle of initiative, competitiveness, specialization and with the help of regulation of the chapter. (20 minutes).

Reaction to sentences heard, summarizing – each up to 1 minute. (15 minutes).

Consider each of the following questions for 10 minutes each. The first to speak is the department to which it most pertains, up to 2 minutes. For 8 minutes there is a capacious discussion on the part of those who wish to do so. (80 minutes).

Summing up and coordination of further actions by the chapter – 11 minutes.

Thus, the meeting for 16 people takes 2 hours and 15 minutes with active discussion. Someone will ask how it is possible to discuss, if the statements of two minutes, the reactions – one minute, and for other questions in general the total time of 10 minutes. The answer is: calmly, without demagogy and in substance.

The meeting is necessary to summarize somewhere, to bring out a problem somewhere, and in the end to solve the key issue. Work on projects and between specialists is separate and can take all day. The meeting, on the other hand, should bring fresh thoughts, clear ideas, and reflect opinions on this or that issue.

If you take away emotion or personal motives, the statement boils down to a statement like, “There is a budget shortfall for planned equipment depreciation. The only solution my department sees is to reallocate the budget by reducing the cost of the number of units to be repaired and further used during that month. This would result in a slight decrease in production, but it would allow us to avoid additional credit at high rates. We are prepared to provide estimates of the changes that will follow.” It doesn’t take 10 minutes for this thought. It will be followed by statements – approving, negative, alternative, and clarifying. And the director is in a position to decide on further measures in this direction.