Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Regardless of the industry you’re in or the kind of work you do, it’s inevitable that at
some point you'll need to participate in a business meeting. Some workplaces,
especially those in office settings, have several meetings a day, while others may only
have them once every few weeks. Regardless, it’s important to be aware of what
types of topics are discussed in the meetings at your workplace, how an effective
meeting should be conducted and what etiquette rules to follow during a meeting. If
you’re in charge of running a meeting, you may be required to come up with
icebreakers for the attendees or to take notes, or minutes, at the meeting.
The purpose of a business meeting is often to make important decisions regarding the
organization. Whether it’s deciding on a departmental issue, such as how to grow the
marketing budget, or a larger organizational matter, like how many people to lay off
during a time of transition, a meeting helps to convey ideas clearly. When speaking in
person with important stakeholders, it’s easier to get across important information
effectively in order to reach the decision in question.
Business meetings also help to resolve conflict and solve complex problems. Conflict
can be a common occurrence in the workplace, with many different personalities
working together on a team. While some conflict is healthy and can foster growth, it
can also be undesirable and require quick resolution. Holding a meeting can help the
disagreeing parties to reach an understanding. Larger problems that involve multiple
stakeholders have a better chance of being resolved in a business meeting when the
important people in question are all in one place and working toward the same goal.
Review the attendee list carefully and invite only key stakeholders to the meeting. If
someone that needs to be at the meeting cannot attend, you may need to reschedule
to accommodate them. Otherwise, running a meeting with a missing stakeholder that
is required for decision-making can turn out to be ineffective.
Time is valuable, and it’s important to respect that people who attend your meeting are
taking the time out of their day to do so. As a result, it’s vital to ensure the meeting
starts and ends on time. When preparing the agenda, decide how much time you’ll
need to spend on each item and run the meeting by the clock. If you feel that the
meeting is going off-track, reign it in by asking people to stick to the topics on the
agenda. If other important issues arise, table them for further discussion at another
point.
In order to ensure that no important items brought up in your meeting were missed,
take notes, also called minutes. You can either write or type them out yourself during
the meeting or assign someone else in the meeting to take the notes for you. This way
you will be able to concentrate on the discussion. After the meeting, be sure to review
the notes, add any missing items and send them to the important stakeholders.
Having a written record of what was discussed in the meeting can be helpful if issues
arise in the future.
After the business meeting is over, be sure to follow up on any action items that were
decided upon. You may need to send reminders to your colleagues or touch base with
them to make sure they completed their tasks. If there are any outstanding issues that
were not completed by the deadline, you may need to have an additional discussion
with that person.
Some icebreaker activities involve a bit of preparation on the meeting organizer’s part.
One activity includes writing the name of celebrities on small pieces of paper and
sticking a name on the back of each attendee. In this game, each attendee has to ask
yes or no questions about the person whose name is on their back, trying to guess
who it is.
Being a good listener and an active participant are central aspects of attending a
business meeting. Be sure to follow along with what people are saying, ask questions
when you’re not sure of something and provide answers or insight on items you’re
responsible for. Your body language is also part of being an active participant; this
means sitting up tall instead of slouching in your chair and making eye contact with the
people you’re speaking to.
Depending on the type of meeting you attend, you may want to send a thank you note
to the meeting organizer or the people you met with. This might be appropriate if
you’re meeting with an important client or prospect. You can thank them for their time
and reiterate some important things you discussed in the meeting to show your
enthusiasm.
Before attending a meeting, write out a simple template that you can fill in while taking
notes. Get a copy of the agenda for the meeting and use it as a guide. At the top of
the agenda, add a space for noting the names of all the meeting attendees. If there
are key stakeholders missing, you’ll want to note that as well in case you need to
follow up with them later. Depending on the type of meeting and the topics to be
discussed, there are a number of items you can add to the minutes template:
Before the meeting, establish what you want the minutes to achieve. This will help the
person who is taking the minutes to tailor the document to best achieve that goal. In
many cases, you may need to achieve more than one goal with the minutes. As a
result, it’s critical to have a clear understanding of your goals so that your minutes
document can help you reach them.