The average American office worker spends 37% of their day at work in meetings. Worse, they often report that their meetings don’t use their time well.
“The meeting-industrial complex has grown to the point that communications has eclipsed creativity as the central skill of modern work,” writes Derek Thompson in an article for The Atlantic. “The typical meeting is a leaky time suck, absorbing people’s attention in a way that cannot be fully measured by simply counting up the total number of hours blocked out for calls.”
But here’s the bright side: Team leaders have the opportunity to create meaningful work outcomes and community from their team meetings. You might even be able to lead meetings that people actually look forward to—with thoughtful planning and a little creativity.
Here are five strategies for leading a better team meeting.
Create a clearly designed agenda
The first way to improve meetings is to clarify the meeting purpose for yourself as the meeting organizer and for your intended attendees. In preparing the meeting agenda, list out the topics you want to include—and then ruthlessly prioritize. You won’t likely get to everything that you’d like, so choose what best suits the meeting purpose, audience, and timing. For each topic you add to the agenda, you may want to notate the intended design, such as brainstorming, discussing, aligning the team, making a decision, creating a plan, or learning together.
I like to include a question or two under each agenda topic. These questions should be designed to both demonstrate the goal of having a conversation, rather than a report out, and to get attendees thinking about the work we’ll be doing. For example, if we’re strategizing about a board of trustees meeting, the questions for the agenda might reference what the immediate next steps are from the most recent meeting and what we want to begin focusing on for the next meeting. Once you determine the meeting purpose, focus areas, and agenda, consider who really needs to be present.
Manage time well
In preparing for the meeting, allocate a specific amount of time for each of the meeting topics and add these time blocks to the agenda. Keep in mind that people tend to underestimate how much time a task or discussion might take. For example, a budget discussion may merit an hour, but you may only have half of that time available. Consider what piece of the discussion you can move forward in the time allotted. Or, you may determine that the budget needs to be moved to a different meeting in order to dedicate enough time to the discussion.
During the meeting itself, keep an eye on timing and how it aligns with what was planned. A leader should curate the meeting experience and guide the conversation flow—though not necessarily the conversation itself.
For this reason, managing time is an important part of a leader’s responsibility. You may have to gently interrupt a person or discussion in order to refocus the meeting. And be sure to end the meeting at the intended time. In a world of back-to-back meetings, this is a differentiator. Your colleagues will notice when you steward their time well.
Invite everyone to contribute to the conversation
To create an inclusive meeting—and more importantly, an inclusive work culture—help people feel comfortable sharing their ideas and thoughts and contributing to the discussion. One of my favorite tips for how to best welcome people to a large group meeting from Priya Parker’s The Art of Gathering is to greet them at the door. Even if you don’t physically greet attendees, you can find ways to welcome them.
You can also use strategies to help people feel more engaged and prepared to share in a meeting, even if they are introverted. There are many ways to accomplish this. First, you can send the agenda in advance, ask attendees to first reflect silently on a topic in a meeting before inviting comments, or use a polling mechanism to solicit insights.
You can also invite feedback (and potential dissent) from the group by asking questions such as “What’s missing?” when presenting an idea. Or you could ask, “What else do we need to consider before we proceed with this plan?” before moving forward. All of these techniques can help ensure that you invite everyone to contribute to the conversation
Build in learning, connection, and collaboration
Clients often lament to me that they wish they had more time in their day for learning and celebration. The truth is: we can’t magically add more time in our days, but we can leverage the time we have. For this reason, I recommend that leaders build time to connect, learn, and celebrate wins into existing team meeting agendas.
When you prioritize the “human” side of work alongside other business topics, you show your team that you value learning and growth, as well as work outcomes. Look for inspiration from an article about your industry, TED Talk, or podcast that relates to areas you’d like to build skills in or discuss with your team. To celebrate more, start the meeting by asking everyone to share a professional (or personal) win or acknowledge a team achievement.
Clarify and follow through on next steps
Lastly, close your meeting with a strong conclusion. This can be a formal statement of thanks and a recap, a moment of reflection, or a question about how the conversation will inform their work when they get back to their desks.
Clarify who is responsible for managing any tasks that resulted from the discussion. And if during the meeting you committed to send additional information to a team member, prioritize doing so. You may find it’s helpful to proactively block 15 minutes on your calendar after bigger meetings, so you have time to do the things you committed to in the meeting. Your follow-through as a leader will define you.
When you ask people to commit their time to attending a meeting, it’s important to make progress on business topics. But keep in mind, there are valuable opportunities for connection and collaboration, too. When you’re all together as a team, aim to create something that otherwise wouldn’t be possible, and you’ll see benefits for your team’s productivity, engagement, and culture.
