How to Organize, Hold and Run Meetings

Meetings are key and essential for most businesses, they allow managers and staff to interact with one another, they allow time for mind mapping and brainstorming, and they allow interaction with staff, team members, leaders and managers.

So.....how do you make sure your meeting is as successful as it can be - here are a few tips:

1. Plan and prepare. Plan what topics and areas of interest you want to cover or go over in the meeting, if you need to produce handouts or power point presentations then make sure they are done well in advance, and ensure they are never longer than two pages - Remember people won't want to read and essay. Plan and produce an Agenda and then email it to all the people who will be present at the meeting.

2. KISS - Keep it simple silly. Nobody likes long meetings that drag on and on, so make sure your meetings are relevant, necessary and no longer than an hour at a time. If they are longer then ensure regular breaks are taken, as if not you will find you have a very unresponsive audience.

3. Only invite people who need to be there. If you are organising a specific meeting then ensure that only necessary participants and individuals attend. The more people that attend that don't need to be there the harder your job will be!

4. Let everyone know about the meeting in advance (unless of course it is an emergency meeting) People, individuals and participants will be much happier attending your meeting if they know about it in advance, be it through email or by phone, rather than if they just had it sprung on them last minute.

5. Don't try to cram too much information into one meeting. Don't try to cover or do too much, or else you will give your participants and individuals an information overload and nothing effective will come out of your meeting.

6. Stay focused. If people start to interrupt your meeting then consider having a break, but do not let yourself lose focus or get distracted. If you lose focus you will leading by example and letting your participants know you no longer mean business, which as a result will end up with them losing all interest in what you have to say.

I hope you have found this article both useful and helpful. I hope your meetings go well and are successful. Remember sometimes less is more, make use of the time you have in a meeting, and remember that you only get out what you put in.