Managers in the United States ranked meetings number one on their list of time wasters. Without an intentional commitment to creating a more effective meeting environment, this problem will continue to escalate as many organizations are letting employees remain in a remote capacity.
In the last three blogs, we discussed “Pre-Meeting Strategies”, “Meeting Etiquette” and “Meeting Leadership Strategies” to help engage participants and increase remote meeting effectiveness. This blog will focus on the final section of Remote Meeting Engagement which is the “Post-Meeting” leadership strategies.
Here are seven post-meeting strategies to consider:
- Set the date for the next meeting. If there are action items or additional meetings required as a result of the meeting, set the date for the follow-up meeting at the conclusion of the current meeting. Assign a responsible party the job to send out the meeting invitation to make sure it gets on everyone’s calendars.
- Recognize meeting contributors. Recognition is a powerful motivator that helps keep people engaged. At the conclusion of the meeting or in a follow-up email take a moment to recognize those that came prepared and/or made contributions to the meeting.
- Post summary of meeting discussions, results, and decisions at the conclusion of the meeting. People are pulled into multiple meetings every day/week and can forget what was discussed and agreed upon during any one of those meetings. Make sure you post a meeting summary in a shared folder easily accessible to all attendees, or anyone that may have missed the meeting.
- Send and post a follow-up meeting action plan which includes action steps, responsible parties, and due dates. In addition to posting the meeting minutes, it is important to send out an action plan so everyone has in writing the action steps and due dates assigned to each person. This will reduce confusion and allow you to move to the next strategy…checkpoints.
- Devise checkpoints to keep everyone on schedule and focused on results. Often times people depend on each other to complete their action items in order to be able to complete their own action items. Creating checkpoints allows the leader to hold people accountable and make sure everything remains on track.
- Communicate shifting priorities or problems as they arise. When one person is unable to complete their action items on time, it can through off the rest of the team. Make sure you communicate any challenges that you discover during your check-in conversations. If priorities need to be shifted because of these challenges, or shifting business priorities, communicate these changes to the whole team.
- Self-evaluate the meeting and/or consider having participants evaluate the value of the meeting. Ask yourself, “What went well?” and “What could have gone better?” When taking the time to evaluate the effectiveness and value of the meeting you can determine what should be adjusted to make your remote meetings more successful in the future.
Over these past four blogs on “Remote Meeting Engagement,” we have discussed 28 strategies to create a more effective meeting environment. These 28 strategies will produce a more robust exchange of ideas and enhance engagement of meeting participants, increasing your organization’s bottom-line results.
Interested in learning more, join us for a complimentary 1-hour webinar, Leading Effective Virtual Meetings, on September 30 at 9:00 AM.