Business meetings can be an incredibly useful way of generating and discussing ideas, touching base with project progress, and making sure every member of the team is on the right track.
However, meetings can quickly descend into a waste of time if they are not managed effectively. Anyone who has endured a late starting business meeting due to a late attendee will understand this.
Indeed, because meetings are loosely controlled conversations, these discussions can veer off-topic at a moment’s notice and end up addressing none of the topics assigned to the meeting. This is especially true if you and your colleagues have all become close and can therefore be tempted to use the meeting as a social get-together.
These issues can be terrible for maintaining productivity, which is why it is imperative to manage your business meetings as effective as possible.
Here are some top tips for managing your meetings better:
Corporate travel management can make overseas meetings simpler
Managing your business meetings is difficult, but if they take place overseas, your organizational skills will be stretched to the limit. Not only will you have to worry about how to make sure the meeting itself starts on time, finishes on time, and stays on schedule, but to book travel connections, accommodation, and a conference room.
It will also be important to ensure these bookings are paid for at a price that suits your budget, and that doesn’t conflict with your meeting schedule in any way.
For example, if your meeting is taking place in a drastically different time zone, you won’t want to book a flight that arrives the day before the meeting because your team may be jet-lagged.
Unfortunately, if your full capacity is spent trying to arrange overseas logistics, you may struggle to manage the meeting itself, which can result in an unproductive experience. This will render the whole endeavor pointless, which is why you might want to use a corporate travel organizer like Amex Global Business Travel.
Assign a clear target for each meeting
To ensure every meeting you organize is a success, you need to know what success looks like. Many businesses organize meetings without knowing what they want to achieve from them.
Setting clear targets for each meeting will give you an aim to base the conversation around and a marker to judge your success from at the end of the meeting.
Keep the meeting duration as short as possible
The trick to achieving efficiency in any activity is to try and perform it to a high quality but complete it in as tight a timeframe as possible. A time constraint focuses the mind and helps channel productive conversation.
Set a tight limit on each meeting. If you find that the limit is too constricting, you can always lengthen it over time. The trick is to make sure no one can sit back in their chairs and engage in small talk. By sticking to the time limit, your team will find it easier to stay on topic.
As a bonus, the shorter the conversation, the faster each member of the team can get back to their jobs, boosting overall corporate productivity further.
