Ineffective meetings with customers, result in wasted time, unachieved objectives and impact the productivity of an organization. Though not tangible, such meetings draw out actions, and inevitably result in a bottom-line impact to the corporation. So what can be done to run effective meetings.
Symptoms
Some of the symptoms of ineffective meetings are when people are all over the map, there is no clear leader in control, people are talking over people, no actions get assigned and the wrong people are involved. Generally these meetings will end with no conclusion on issues and will defer to having more meetings on that topic. Sometimes media inefficacy like a bad phone line, improper connectivity or such snags can jeopardize meetings as well.
Talk to the customer before holding the actual meeting
The purpose of this conversation would be to uncover what the customer wants to talk about. Set goals and outcomes of meetings. Have a well defined agenda and get buy-in from the customer about the line items on the agenda. Talk about who will participate in the meeting and what their role will be. It does not make sense to just take people for the sake of taking people.
Circulate the findings from the customer to the appropriate people on your side, and if you have the authority, on the side of the customer. Get any objections people have to it out of the way. Solicit input if needed before firming up and circulating the agenda.
Confirm people’s attendance by sending out an invite. These days people use Microsoft Outlook quite often. For remote attendees make sure that they have all the information to attend via computer or phone line. Pay attention to what time zone people are in.
During the meeting it is very easy, and often the case, for people to get rat holed into discussions that are not relevant or waste time. If you are the leader, focus on what you want to accomplish ie the agenda. Adhere to the topics and have constant time checks on issues. Offline any issue that might need more discussion. Where possible, make crisp decisions than postpone them. Challenge people if they deviate from issues. Make sure you have one meeting not several side conversations going on. Assign action items where needed and assign timelines to them. Discuss next steps.
It is really important that you circulate the minutes of the meeting afterwards to all the attendees and others who might need to know. Clear actions need to be assigned with clear owners. People have a tendency to forget as soon as they leave a meeting. Use this as the starting agenda of any follow-up meetings that you might have.
