19 Ways to Make Your Meetings Highly Productive

Steve Jobs, former CEO of Apple Inc., was notorious for being a strict administrator at official gatherings. According to Ken Segall, a collaborator with him, Jobs once told an employee to walk out of a meeting because she was not needed in it.

The reason for the 15 minute limit advocated for meetings is because the average human attention span to digest new information is 15 to 18 minutes, after which physical exhaustion sets in due to the extra oxygen and glucose needed to understand and absorb new information. The impatience generated during long meetings will be avoided altogether, and the participants in the meeting will feel more relieved and stay refreshed if they know that they will leave the meeting soon enough.

It is necessary that the meeting start on time in order for it to end on time. If it doesn't, the rest of the day is delayed for other parties that might want to use the room for another meeting. If the conference is set at 2 PM, take strict action against the ones coming in later than 2, for example, by not allowing them inside. The ones that are early could be rewarded for their punctuality with refreshments before the meeting commences. Nip tardiness in the bud by setting an example.

The party, ahem, meeting, is going to go badly if the attendees do not come well-prepared for it. Send the itinerary you've prepared to other people who are to attend, and specify if the meeting is regarding issuing information, assigning work, performance reviews, or brainstorming. Thus, you ensure that everyone that comes (including you) is well-prepared for the discussion and has had time to consider solutions. Do not spring unexpected topics into the discussion.

Small talk, digression and rambling eat up a lot of time and make employees lose focus. The agenda is lost and employees walk out dissatisfied and clueless. It would not encourage anyone to come again. As someone presiding over the proceedings, it is your job to ensure that speakers do not change topics, and if they do so, it is not wrong to politely tell them to reserve the small talk for water-cooler meetings.

Before starting the proceedings, decide how much time is allotted to speakers and make it known to them. They will stick to their original point to get it across as quickly as possible. Once the time is up, the next speaker will speak. Each person should get an equal amount of time. Complainers should not be entertained if the type of meeting does not allow it.

Do not even allow the meeting to reach anywhere near this point. The longer it lasts, the less easily people can get back to work. The more that happens, the angrier people will get, leading to irrational and unprofessional behavior. Hold separate meetings to address complaints between private parties.

It has been observed that writing increases retention of ideas as well as facts, whereas typing on a gadget makes the typist concentrate on typing the correct words, rather than concentrate on ideas enunciated. Create a place where people can safely leave their gadgets and retrieve them after the proceedings are over. Even when it comes to making presentations, completely relying on them makes the "communication and discussion" part of the meeting redundant.

Meetings that last longer than half or one hour, taking breaks is essential to refresh the participants. This helps prevent loss of concentration and retain interest in the proceedings. Moreover, breaks help people digest and mull over information that they have just taken in. This ensures the next session is going to be well-thought over.

CEOs these days prefer to conduct meetings while standing or walking. No chairs are given to anyone present. This is not a torture tactic, but from an evolutionary perspective, things get done faster standing. The body gets tired, and mental processes work faster to avoid this fatigue. Standing up also feels more important, whereas sitting makes people comfortable enough to become lax. Sometimes, nature is said to stimulate creativity.

Web conferences are also better for impromptu discussion because they reduce the possibility of travel and can be played back. A web conference automatically reduces the topics to what is needed to be discussed.

If, during the proceedings, you find that sufficient information regarding the issue is not available or is not being presented clearly, adjourn the meeting to a later time to avoid misinformation being created and spread, which will ultimately come back to bite you. There is also the assurance that you are not wasting anyone's time with pointless speculation.

At the end of each conference, make sure you get feedback from everyone. After a few days, ask them to follow up with you later with whatever tasks they were allotted to do. This confirms what transpired to them during the time they spent with you. Feedback enables you to learn where you go wrong in conducting meetings that produce zero results.

The crux of the matter is to avoid too much conferencing. Make sure you are calling people for the most urgent and important reasons. The less get-togethers you call, the more your people get time to do what they originally were hired to do. Meetings cost a pretty penny to organizations, and the less frequently you call them, the more important they will be to all involved, and the more seriously they will be taken.

The minutes must be recalled at the end of the session. This is done to clarify and avoid confusion as to the final action and also to refresh the memory of those present. The plan of future action that has been drawn up must be presented once more in brief, and each person's role must be recounted by himself to encourage participation and understanding.

"If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be 'meetings.'"
― Dave Barry, American Author and Columnist