In today’s corporate world modern companies often suffer from an acute form of meeting mania, in other words, having too many not-so- efficient meetings. To fight against this disease, specialists have come up with technology tools that help improve the quality of meetings. However, it would be a huge mistake to forget about the human factor!
By focusing on collective intelligence and relying on your co-workers, you have the power to turn your meetings into a great moment of constructive participation and sharing.
1. Remember the most important rule: meeting = getting ahead with a project
You do not want to find yourself surrounded by co-workers giving you a blank stare at 9 in the morning. Prepare your agenda beforehand by making a list of important or urgent issues that need to be discussed during the meeting. If you engage your team during the preparation stage, they will be more involved, and you will be able to come up with answers that will allow everyone to move on with their projects.
2. Let your co-workers express themselves
You do not necessarily have to ask everyone in the room to speak up: some of your co-workers may simply say yes or no without adding any comment, whereas others may get the impression that their opinion doesn’t matter at all.
To fix this, tools like applications with live polls or word clouds allow each and every one of your co-workers to express themselves, to save time and improve the efficiency of your meetings.
3. Make sure you have time to present new projects
Meetings often leave the participants with a feeling of “been there, done that”. You may have figured out solutions for certain projects in progress, but the overall impression is that you have made a tiny step since last week’s meeting. If by the end of the allotted time few new lines of work are established, your meeting is not productive.
What should you do? Leave 15 minutes at the end of the meeting to give your co-workers a chance to talk about new projects.
4. Transform your meeting reports into questionnaires
Instead of sending the same old report that nobody ever reads, use an innovative questionnaire. Here are some sample questions:
- Did they receive all the answers they needed in order move on? If the answer is no, you will be able to identify the problem.
- Which of the discussed issues was the most useful?
- Which issue would they like to develop more?
This feedback will provide you with numbers, statistics and ideas on how to improve the next meeting.
5. Introduce your co-workers to new tech tools
And let technology help you! Leading a meeting is a challenge that managers face on a regular basis. Sparkup has come up with an efficient solution that engages your team and turns it into the driving force of your meetings.
Using entertaining interactive tools will get your co-workers more involved in the meeting. For example, live polls help to overcome the organizational barriers and feelings of unease and awkwardness: everyone can express their opinion without worrying about being reprimanded by their boss. And at the end of the meeting you will be able to get automatically generated statistics, with information that is much more precise and comprehensible than long reports that offer no clear decisions or solutions.
When you give your co-workers the chance to express themselves through digital tools, they become active participants that make the meeting efficient. You may be the captain of this ship, but you will not go far without the crew. Encourage teamwork, and #magicatwork will follow!
