5 Ways to Lead a Meeting: Make 30 Decisions in 30 Minutes

Meetings at work have become a commodity – we have too many of them that are not adding substantive value. As such, meetings are losing their impact, becoming distractions and forums for political maneuvering. It’s time to rethink how leaders can maximize engagement and their opportunities when people are asked to come together as one.

Meetings should be the exception, not the rule. The new workplace requires us all to be more entrepreneurial; this means that people must manage their responsibilities as if they were managing their own business. In other words, employees must become less dependent on requesting “face time” with their colleagues and more accountable to get things done virtually using the communications tools and technologies that are at one’s disposal.

Meetings should be taken seriously and every participant should come fully prepared for both the expected discussion topics (the agenda items set-forth by the leader) and the unexpected topics (the agendas that individual participants may bring with them). Today’s meetings should be quick and to the point. Every minute matters and everyone’s time should be valued. Meetings should result in increased focus on goals, with accountability designation on mutually agreed upon action items that lead to building momentum and reaching the bottom-line result.

The goal of a meeting is to make decisions. The best leaders can make at least 30 solid decisions in 30 minutes throughout the course of a meeting. Yes, that’s a decision every minute, but they are not only making decisions about the agenda items – but about the participants, their leadership styles, behavior and attitude, preparedness or lack thereof, the group’s confidence level, their ability to perform and generate desired outcomes, and so on.

In fact, if you are not the meeting leader (host), you can more effectively engage in a meeting by listing the number of decisions that you believe the leader should be making. Next time you are in a meeting, take note (in keyword form) of the different decisions that you believe the meeting leader should be making. Perhaps you can see decisions that she/he can’t see and this will give you the opportunity to compare notes with other meeting participants and the leader. This approach also allows you to identify how effectively the leader is managing the agenda and participant engagement, and whether or not the meeting is resulting in increased focus and momentum.

Most meetings are ineffective because the agenda is unclear and the participants are too focused on the political dynamics in the room rather than on being part of the solution to the problem or an enabler of the opportunity presented.

If you are having trouble making your meetings productive (and worthy of people’s time), here are five ways to lead a meeting and make 30 decisions in 30 minutes.

Are You Having the Meeting for a Tangible Reason?

Don’t have a meeting if you don’t believe you can generate a tangible call to action that will impact the business. Participants must come prepared and their collective preparedness will lead to a set of manageable actions that will get you closer and faster to a measureable bottom-line outcome.

Too many times, meetings are scheduled simply to get an update. As the leader, you must be close enough to the business to have a strong enough pulse on it – at all times. This should also be the case for the participants on the team. The best teams represent interconnected parts and therefore should be well aware of critical updates without having a meeting. Besides, this is where project management software and other types of technology can save a lot of time and eliminate “update” meetings.

Define the Agenda Carefully and Stay on Point

This advice sounds simple, but most leaders miss the mark. The agenda should be centered on one of two things that impact the bottom-line: solving an important problem or enabling an opportunity. Each of these areas will be a by-product of the plan that your department is executing. They should result in either helping to cut costs or increase revenue.

The agenda must focus on eliciting key insights from the leader and /or the participants to achieve the desired meeting results. The agenda should be sent out with enough advance notice to assure that all participants are prepared in the meeting to intelligently address agenda items, make timely decisions and designate appropriate action items.

The meeting should stay focused on the agenda items at hand. Should participants use this meeting to introduce their own agendas, acknowledge them if they support the goals of the meeting but be certain to assure this type of behavior is minimized if they cause distraction.

Stay on point, remain focused on the objectives at hand and build the appropriate momentum to reach your desired result.

Participant Meeting Expectations Must Be Made Clear

When inviting people to a meeting, your expectations for each person must be made clear in advance of the meeting. Every participant should be assigned a specific role at the meeting and be expected to contribute and “speak-up.” Invite those who play a direct role in advancing the agenda as well as those with a more indirect role who can add value to the dialogue and outcome of the meeting.

Value people’s time! Remember that everyone is busy and a meeting always adds more to each person’s workload. As the meeting leader, think about how each participant can benefit from the meeting itself. Perhaps a participant’s right-hand person (e.g., executive assistant or direct report) is more than capable of attending on behalf of their boss. Be mindful of the tasks that everyone has on their own plate. Don’t disrupt their flow – if it isn’t necessary. Weigh the pros and cons.

Request Feedback and Recommendations

At the end of the meeting, take no more than five minutes and go around the room and request closing remarks from attendees. This is the time when you should be getting objective feedback about the meeting and any final recommendations – when people can be extremely candid about the time spent together and share any last minute thoughts and suggestions.

This is also the time for those who didn’t have a chance to speak-up earlier; and for you to make any final decisions about next steps before ending the meeting.

List Your 30 Decisions and Define Your Action Plan

As a follow-up to the meeting, list your 30 decisions, prioritize them and note which participants helped you make them and why. From this you can finalize your action plan.

This may appear to be a lot of work and overdoing the follow-up, but it is required for you to understand how effective you were in leading the meeting and deriving your ultimate plan of action. Besides, the more you take on this discipline, the more you will begin to see how you think and evolve during the course of a meeting.

It also allows you to understand how to better utilize participants in the future and how you can provide them with the proper feedback and guidance to help them lead their own meetings.

You may also want to share your 30 decisions with your boss – not only to give them a stronger pulse on your needs to help the business, but also to help them give you better feedback to make you a more effective leader.

Remember to always make your meetings matter. Don’t waste time and get to the point. These five suggestions will make you much more productive and get you on track to building a high-performance team. Thirty decisions will quickly become 50 once you master this method.