Run Efficient Meetings In English

Many professionals nowadays are asked to chair and run meetings with very little notice. This can be stressful and time consuming especially if you are asked to do it in English. To help you to succeed you should think about how best to run an efficient and effective meeting as well as what language to use. Here are some tips to help you with both:

1. Inform and remind everyone attending the reason for the meeting just before

By informing attendees just before they are not only less likely to forget it but they will also come with any material or information needed to support the discussion topics.

English language communication tip:

Email:

"Dear John

I'd just like to remind you of the meeting scheduled tomorrow in the Board Room at 14.30 hrs to discuss progress on the Paris project. We are looking forward to hearing how the sales team has been performing over the last three months.

I am still waiting to receive your written report ahead of the meeting. Please could you send it to me as soon as possible and copy everyone in?

Thank you.

Best wishes

Simon"

2. Minimize participants

Invite only those who are truly needed. As the number of participants goes up so does the tendency to get bogged down. Often, those who are not needed will show up to obtain any information resulting from the meeting.

English language communication tip:

spoken:

Ben: "Do you need me at the meeting tomorrow, Simon?"

Simon: "No thanks Ben. There's no need for you to be there. John will let you know what we decide."

Ben: "Fine, no problem. I'm sure that he'll fill me in after."

3. Establish and follow an agenda

As a rule, every meeting should have an agenda that has at least three points; the topics, the time allocated for each topic, and the "speaker," the one who is taking the lead for a given topic.

English language communication tip:

Written:

"Agenda for Paris Project Progress Meeting 14.00 hrs Weds 17 February 2010 The Board Room

1 Chairman's introduction Simon 5 minutes

2 Review of actions points of last meeting Simon 10 minutes

3 Marketing update Jane 20 minutes

3 Logistics over view David 20 minutes

4 Recruitment update Stephen 15 minutes

5 Presentation of promotion strategy Simon 20 minutes

Set time and date of next meeting

Close"

4. State the purpose and intended outcome

Meeting leaders should not assume that everyone automatically understands the meeting purpose and the desired outcomes. By stating them clearly at the beginning, it will get the meeting started quickly and keep it on track.

English language communication tip:

Spoken:

"Good afternoon, everybody. Thanks for coming along this afternoon and thank you for your reports. I have asked you here today to check that we are all making adequate progress as regards the Paris project. I am looking forward to hearing briefly how each of you is getting on. Once we have completed this stage of the meeting, I will finish by presenting the promotion strategy to you. If you all manage to keep to the time limits that I have set, there should be time for questions afterwards. David, will you take the minutes today, please?"

5. Attempt to involve each team member

Meetings can often get off balance when a few attendees do all the talking and dominate the discussions. Try and involve everybody in turn to make sure that the group work as a team.

English language communication tip:

Spoken:

"Thanks John, sorry to interrupt, but I'd really like to hear what Jane thinks about this, too."

6. Use diagrams, pictures and graphics

"Show not tell" is never more true than in meetings. This can reduce meeting durations by as much 30%. Whenever practical, encourage participants to use diagrams, pictures and graphics instead of handing out pages full of text.

7. Park important but unrelated topics

There may be times when an important topic, which is not on the agenda, will come up. Rather than divert the focus of the meeting, it may be better to list (park) the topics for another meeting.

English language communication tip:

Spoken:

"That sounds interesting, Jane, but could we put that on the agenda for the next meeting? I'd like to move on now."

8. Record action items, person to action, and due dates

Most times meeting discussions are very interactive, but if the results are not translated into action items may fail to be productive. Almost every meeting should conclude with a) a description of actions to be taken, b) who has accepted the action, and c) when the action item is to be completed.

English language communication tip:

Written:

"Action to be taken: Person to complete: Deadline date:

Compile list of suppliers David Mon 1 March"

9. Issue a brief written meeting summary

Taking a few minutes to document a meeting can go a long way. By summarizing a) who attended, b) main topics discussed, c) conclusions reached, and d) actions to be taken, information will be easily recorded and disseminated. Meeting summaries should be kept to one page containing "bullet-type" statements.

10. Periodically measure the effectiveness of the meetings

Like any area of your work, it is useful to reflect on how effective your way of running meetings actually is. Then you can make changes to improve things and avoid a culture "that's the way that we do things around here".

Enjoy your meeting! Or may be not too much or it will be too fun to stop and so continue for too long!

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