Business meetings are indispensable when you don’t want to do anything

It’s common in corporate business circles to laugh about meetings, and the image problem of the meetings has resulted in increasing employee scorn. This is particularly true when it comes to board meetings, which are often viewed as unproductive and removed from reality. We’ve all heard the jokes and, as Canadian economist John Gailbraith famously said, “Meetings are indispensable when you don’t want to do anything”.

However meetings, and particularly board meetings, are absolutely essential to running a successful small business. The problem is technique – either we never learnt how to run an effective meeting, or the technique has been lost. Business and board meetings often lack structure, discipline, and clear objectives. As a result, they fail to deliver results.

 

Could board meetings be the real reason behind why big business gets big and small business stays small?

Meetings have been an essential component of successful businesses for years. We’ve gone through trends in business practices and changes in technology, yet the business meeting hasn’t become redundant. This is undoubtedly due to the value it delivers – if meetings are managed well, the boardroom becomes the flight deck of your business.

What defines a well-run business meeting?

There are three key components to ensure your meetings deliver benefits greater than the productivity time lost:

• Your boardroom strategy
• Your meeting rules, and
• Your agenda.

 Your boardroom strategy

Once you define your boardroom strategy, it becomes seamlessly integrated into your business culture. A strategy may be incredibly simple, such as:

• Regular meetings that are marked in a shared calendar and diarised for the upcoming six to 12 months
• Concise and specific agendas that are communicated in advance
• Specified roles and requirements for participants, and
• Recorded and distributed minutes (it is particularly vital to ensure action items and agreed delivery dates are recorded).

Your meeting rules

Business meetings can only be effective if they are governed well, and this comes down to your meeting rules. These can include:

• Compulsory attendance
• No interruptions (except in case of an emergency)
• Timing cut-offs (these can be defined for each agenda item, as well as for the meeting as a whole)
• Voting rules, and how to apply them
• What to do when an agreement can’t be reached
• Standards of interpersonal behavior, and
• Confidentiality.

Your agenda

Your agenda will vary depending on the specific goal of your meeting, but it must be clear and specific. A board meeting agenda will generally cover all aspects of a business, including:

• Action items from the previous meeting
• Management
• Finance
• Sales/Marketing
• Human Resources/Staff
• Project updates
• Workplace Health & Safety (WH&S), and
• General business.

Successful business meetings are a practiced skill

Although it may sound formal, a structured approach to business meetings is the only way to ensure a successful outcome and guarantee a strong return on the time you, and your team, are investing. The saying ‘Failing to plan is planning to fail’ rings incredibly true when it comes to business, and business meetings are no different.

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About Zoltan Szentirmay

Zoltan is a highly-respected business development strategist, published author and CEO of CFO@Call. He consults to a variety of sectors, and works with small, medium and large businesses to develop their business, financial and IT strategies.