You are running your meetings wrong, but how to fix it might surprise you.
“Let’s have a meeting” is typically met with groans and grumbling. And for good reason. In national surveys, business executives consider 67% of meetings failures and 92% of meeting attendees admit to multitasking during meetings. If you feel dragged down in your meetings, here are some things you may be doing wrong:
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1. What’s the point?
If you find yourself holding meetings just because it’s what you do, you might want to rethink that approach. Holding meetings should be a source of essential information for all involved or a collaborative brainstorming environment. Without having an objective, your meetings will fall flat.
To help this problem, make meetings a special occasion. If your agenda starts looking like it can be sent in an email, explore the idea of using collaborative documents to keep your team updated.
2. Same Time, Same Place
Meeting in the same conference room every Tuesday morning may be easy, but it isn’t inspiring. If meetings can be less frequent, you can explore new locations and times. Try lunch meetings or visiting that new local cafe. Not only will this improve conversation, it also benefits morale.
If you are looking for a great meeting place near Boston, check out MIT Endicott House, which has rooms for every type of meeting and excellent amenities.
3. Team Drama
Your meeting won’t be helpful if your team does not get along. Disagreements or lack of community might be costing you great ideas and participation. To help boost team spirit, consider taking your team on a retreat for games and activities that are made to improve team performance.
4. Droning on…
Some meeting experts suggest that meetings should last no more than 10 minutes in the office. Holding short meetings prevents meetings-within-meetings and solves problems without wasting everyone’s time. Adult attention spans usually last around 15 minutes, so short meetings should not run much longer than that.
If you do need to host a longer meeting, consider increasing attention spans and inspirations in other ways, like holding the meeting outdoors.
5. Refusing to Change
If you have not changed up how you do meetings, you can never expect them to change. By adding in these pieces of advice, you can help make your meetings more productive and maybe even fun. If you want to speak to a meeting expert, contact MIT Endicott House. Located outside of Boston Massachusetts, MIT Endicott House has everything you need to make your next meeting or conference stand out. Call us today at 617-253-5211 or contact us here.
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