The six principles of successful meetings

- Many principles contribute to productive meetings and I'd like to emphasize six that are universal. We'll refer to these principles throughout the course. You and your team can adopt or adapt these principles as ground rules for your meetings, whether they're in-person, virtual or hybrid. The first principle is purpose, meaning a clearly defined end result for every meeting. Unfortunately, many meetings happen simply because someone thought it would be useful to get together. Before we call a meeting, we need to define its purpose. Ask yourself and other potential attendees, "What result do we want from this meeting?" The second principle is time. In other words, how long should the meeting be? You want to pause and determine an appropriate amount of time for each meeting. While there's no hard and fast standard for meeting length, aim to make meetings shorter. Concise meetings kept to schedule help attendees make wise decisions about how to use the time. Incidentally, if you need additional assistance with time management, consider taking my LinkedIn learning course on the fundamentals of time management. The third principle is agenda. An agenda is simply a step-by-step outline for participants to follow in the meeting. Agendas can help wrangle unruly meetings that drift aimlessly. I'll provide a suggested agenda you can use as a starting point. We'll also explore ways to use the agenda to help every attendee participate and have a voice. The fourth principle is preparation. Ideally, each participant comes prepared for each meeting. Participants take some time beforehand to consider their questions and how they can serve others. Preparation can be simple. It's something that takes no more than a few minutes. When every team member comes prepared, meetings are significantly more productive. The fifth principle is focus. Focused attendees and focused outcomes. This means staying true to the stated purpose of the meeting. This means listening, remaining attentive, and avoiding multi-tasking. When distractions get in the way of meeting focus, pause and use strategies to get the meeting back on track. pause and use strategies to get the meeting back on track. And the sixth principle is leadership. Put simply, who's guiding the meeting? Who's making sure we're following the other five principles. This meeting facilitator may be an executive, a manager, or a designated meeting facilitator. Regardless of who that person is, every meeting can benefit from having a facilitator. In fact, how meetings are conducted contributes to or detracts from job satisfaction. Leaders and managers can help team members feel valued. When each attendee has a meaningful voice and opportunity to make an impact, they're more likely to view the organization positively and stay in their job. The more you use these six principles: purpose, time, agenda, preparation, focus and leadership, the more successful and productive your meetings will become.