4 precautions to take for an optimized meeting

A meeting is coming up, and you are the one leading it? Everything is planned: from the issues to address to the participants' speaking times. Your speaking skills will help, but they won't be enough! Need help?

Have you ever been to a boring and endless meeting? Or one that you found useless? Usually, it's just a lack of efficiency and preparation by the facilitator. If you are planning to lead a meeting, why not organize it in a way that fulfills its original purpose? Become a powerful tool for management, negotiation, or creativity.

Ask yourself the right questions. Firstly, determine the meeting's objective. Is it to define strategies, resolve a conflict, negotiate a contract change, establish a schedule, or assess a situation? Think in advance about the topics to address: it will save you a lot of time and help you prioritize.

Set an agenda. Keep it during the meeting to ensure no important points are missed. Also, note the issues to raise. To enhance the quality of exchanges and interventions, why not share a brief summary of this agenda with your team? You will save time and energy since everyone will have had time to think about the problems or suggestions they will be presented with. They might even arrive with solutions, who knows?

Consider targeting your invitations. There's no need to gather the entire team if you don't allocate time for each individual to speak. A summary can be sent to everyone afterwards. This way, the meeting will be shorter, more intimate and comfortable, and you will have an easier time ensuring everyone gets their chance to speak.

Plan for breaks. Beyond an hour and a half, concentration decreases, and the audience loses interest. During the meeting, you can use various tools to keep everyone engaged: video presentations, role-playing games, mini-tests, distributing proposals... Make sure no one feels left out, but most importantly, don't let the discussion wander aimlessly. You can certainly address a topic not originally planned, but don't stray from your primary objectives, or you might end up having to organize... a second meeting for the same purpose !!