Meetings are a regular and often dreaded part of the workweek for all of us in association and non profit management. In an ideal world meetings are actually a highlight of your workday. They are productive and highlight how well your team can work together. Seeing your team help each other is inspiring. However this ideal likely does not match up with your meeting reality. So how do you move closer to this ideal?

If you are in charge of the meeting there are many things that you can do. First show up early to test your powerpoint, sound, video and the room’s wifi. Your coworkers will understand if technical problems out of your control occur happen and they will appreciate you taking care of it beforehand.

By showing up early and addressing possible technical difficulties your meeting will start on time. There should be a designated attendee who records key items throughout your meeting.

Now you may be tempted to wait for a late coworker, or delay the meeting to allow everyone to settle in. Do not give into that temptation. It punishes those who show up on time ready to work. Another thing to avoid doing is catching up late attendees. It interrupts the flow of the meeting and again punishes those who showed up on time.

During the meeting tactfully end any off topic or dead-end discussions. One way to do this is to say “That is an interesting point you are raising but it we are not able to do it justice right now. Let’s make it a priority at another meeting.” If your attendee insists respond with “We have a lot on the agenda today and we don’t have the bandwidth to add more items.” That should shut down all off topic discussion without antagonizing any attendees.

Often meeting leaders allow redundant dead-end discussions because they do not want discourage participation. Do not be afraid to explicitly state something like “Let’s avoid redundancies. You all have valuable things to contribute so let’s keep moving forward.”

Aim to get everyone’s point of view and ideas. To do this solicit input for those who have contributed yet. Take a the direct approach with passive participants by asking them questions like “What do you think about this plan?”

No matter how productive and excellent the discussion happening in your meeting is you need to end it 5-10 mins before the scheduled end time. This allows  your attendees to make it to their next meeting on time. It is a small thing but it will reduce your attendees stress for the rest of the day.

Once the meeting concludes look over the key items and compose a brief summary email for all attendees within 24 hours. This email compounds the importance of the meeting and stops attendees from forgetting about their responsibilities. The final thing you need to do is touch base with the attendees to ensure that they are following through on action items.

Do you have any meeting tips that we missed? Share them with us in the comments.

Do you want to implement an effective meeting policy in your association? Download this free great meetings template on us. It has even more information than this blogpost and can be implemented in your non profit right away.