When you lead a meeting, your leadership abilities are front and center for everyone to see. While how you lead a meeting may not be a fair assessment of your true leadership capabilities, like it or not, those around you will assess you as a leader based on how well the meeting is run.
Avoiding these two common mistakes will increase the likelihood that your meeting will run smoothly, leaving a positive perception of your leadership in the minds of attendees. With some upfront work and know-how, you can steer clear of these common pitfalls that derail meetings and leave attendees frustrated.
#1: Not Setting and Enforcing Meeting Ground Rules
Many common grievances attendees have regarding meetings at work could be avoided by setting ground rules. Ground rules are a set of norms and behaviors that everyone agrees to follow for the meeting to not only meet its objective but for it to be a constructive and inclusive environment rather than a destructive one where feelings get hurt, turf wars start, and egos get in the way of meaningful progress.
Poor behavior in meetings is, unfortunately, commonplace. According to a study conducted by The University of Amsterdam, those polled listed these as the top destructive behaviors in meetings, all of which can be avoided by setting ground rules.
- Attendees who take phone calls or text during the meeting (55%)
- Attendees who interrupt others (50%)
- Attendees who show up late or leave early (49%)
- Attendees who don’t listen or are not respectful to others (49%)
- Attendees who dominate the conversation (46%)
Ideally, you would set meeting ground rules in one of your first meetings as a team, though if you haven’t yet, there’s no better time than the present to do so. Also, if you set ground rules for your meetings alone in a silo and then tell your attendees to follow them, it will likely have the opposite effect of what you intend. So, be sure to brainstorm and create a set of ground rules as a group and then get agreement from everyone that they are willing to stick to them going forward.
To help you get started, here is a list of meeting guidelines and rules you can use with your own team.
- Stay mentally present and fight the urge to multitask
- Attack problems, not people
- There is no such thing as a stupid question or idea
- It’s okay to say, “I don’t know”
- Silence electronics
- Start and end on time
- Think about how it can be done, not about how or why it can’t
- Save criticism or constructive feedback for individuals for another time
- Listen to understand, not to reply
- If you’re going to oppose an idea, be prepared to propose an alternative
#2: Not Stopping Meeting Tangents and Off-Agenda Conversations
In a survey of 757 workers in the United States, the number one choice for the most significant meeting challenge was tangents and off-agenda conversations. Tangents can be highly frustrating to attendees. Meeting attendees have agenda items they want to address or hear about, only to have them missed due to a lack of time, as off-topic conversations monopolized the meeting.
Leading a meeting requires addressing off-topic conversations to get the agenda back on track and ensure attendees find value in your meeting. Here are four ways to stop tangents when they arise.
- Deploy the Parking Lot: When someone brings up a new discussion topic that isn’t part of the agenda, take note of it and announce that you will add it to the next agenda.
- Circle Back to the Agenda: Interrupt a tangent by asking that the agenda and subsequent time allotment be followed to ensure all topics are covered in the meeting.
- Keep the Goal Top of Mind: A quick reminder of the purpose and goal of the meeting is a surefire way to get the discussion back on track when a tangent takes over.
- Take It Offline: Some tangents and conversations only involve a few individuals. If the off-topic discussion is for a small group, interpret the tangent and ask it to be discussed outside the meeting.
Learn to Lead Better Meetings
Becoming proficient at leading a meeting is like learning any skill; it takes knowledge and practice to become great at it. Luckily, with a partner like Niagara Institute, you can learn the skills you need to lead productive meetings. With programs covering communication and leadership skills, as well as, opportunities to work with a leadership coach, you can get the skills you need to lead better meetings.