Office meeting: secrets of effective holding. How to organize and conduct an effective meeting: tips for the manager

Hours of mentally draining office meetings are not a myth, not a grotesque thing, and not the stuff of jokes. The realities of today's life are such that up to 50% of working time is spent on empty chatter that does not bring any results. Accelerating life dictates new rules of office culture; holding quick and effective meetings is part of corporate ethics.

What is a staff meeting?

Can a five-minute meeting, a planning meeting, or a meeting be classified as an official meeting? What are the goals of this format of collegial work? What are the generally accepted methods for conducting it and how to achieve the highest results after the meeting is over?

A business meeting is a format of work in a company, with the goal of regular planning and monitoring the execution of planned activities of all services of the organization. This is an effective tool for personnel management and receiving quick feedback from employees. True, this tool works successfully only in the capable hands of a competent leader.

Before introducing a similar form of communication with employees into working mode, a corresponding order is usually issued, which each participant in the meeting receives against signature for review and implementation. The body of the order indicates the goals, objectives, times and dates of official meetings, as well as the list of participants, regulations and structure of the agenda.

The general purpose of holding office meetings is to involve employees, services and departments, both managers and line personnel, in the management and decision-making process.

Office meetings include planning meetings, briefings, and five-minute meetings, at which the vector of development of the company as a whole is agreed upon, tactics and strategy of the enterprise are developed, and specific tasks are set. At planning meetings, current issues are resolved, reminders are sorted out, and the general course is reconciled. Operational meeting is a quick meeting to resolve a problem or conflict situation in a team. The main goal of a business meeting is to set and solve new problems.

If a company begins to become confused about these concepts, the efficiency of working hours will steadily decline.

The main mistakes when holding office meetings

An ineffective meeting reveals the immaturity of the manager and/or organizer of this format of employee communication. In any business, you need experience and skills that can convey the general line of the company to employees and get the greatest return from them.

The main signal of an inept meeting is mutual dissatisfaction with the results: the manager expects responses from his subordinates, who, in turn, want to get the most favorable conditions for themselves. However, at the meeting no one agrees on anything with anyone.

At the same time, office sickness develops - a hypocritical image of interested participation in business meetings, which, in fact, are empty chatter, a discussion of office gossip. For hired employees, such events are of an entertaining nature; they provide another opportunity not to work, not to perform daily routine duties.

Quite often, after such regulated chatter, the manager begins to demand results from employees, a conflict of interest occurs, followed by the dismissal of employees, sometimes by entire departments.

One of the most common mistakes when holding office meetings is the unstructured presentation of the manager's decision, when, instead of brainstorming, the top manager sets inflated demands, and the team, unable to fulfill them, in turn puts forward reasons why the proposal cannot be fulfilled.

This happens because often the manager himself does not know what he wants and does not look for ways to achieve the desired results.

Secrets of Effective Meetings

In order for the meeting to be held with the highest efficiency and bring significant results, the initiator of this collegial form of work needs to know some secrets.

Setting the purpose of the meeting. Any business begins with the correct goal setting. Before gathering employees for a business meeting, the organizer needs to answer a number of questions:

The feasibility of holding the meeting;

Correct regulations and precise topic;

Markers by which one can judge the effectiveness of the event.

A leader is a strategist who is able to set a clear and specific task. Subordinates are specialists who know what tools need to be used to implement the assigned tasks.

Appointment of those responsible for holding the meeting. Any business meeting takes place according to the standard laws of the genre - first, careful preparation is carried out, the appointment of persons responsible for inviting employees, for collecting expectations and proposals, leading each agenda item, performers and secretaries, recording the stages of the meeting, filling out minutes and reports.

Optimal selection of participants. The success of the meeting largely depends on those who will take part in the meeting. It is unacceptable to involve incompetent employees in such events who can divert the event in a different direction. The selection of specialists ready to discuss issues raised at an office meeting must be entrusted to a competent organizer-strategist.

Establishment of regulations. A business meeting, depending on the issues being resolved and the size of the company, usually falls within the standard duration - from thirty minutes to two hours. The planning meeting should end in five to ten minutes, and the operative meeting should end within forty minutes to an hour.

Preparing a meeting plan. Before the opening of a business meeting, each participant receives a detailed agenda plan, reporting materials, according to which he can prepare his questions and/or reports.

Sample agenda structure. This document may include main points related to operational, tactical and/or strategic management in the company. The structure of the agenda usually includes a specific list of tasks dictated by the plans of the enterprise and ways to solve them. In addition, there may be additional tasks on the agenda that it is advisable to complete in the near future.

Holding a meeting. In order for a business meeting to be conducted as efficiently as possible and not turn into a protracted chaos, it needs to start exactly on time, move from question to question quickly, without hesitation. It is necessary to sum up an interim summary after each discussed issue, indicating the exact time and date, and the employees responsible for execution. At the same time, it is necessary to reduce discussions to a minimum, allowing only clarifications when developing solutions.

Efficiency measurements. Each meeting held should be analyzed for compliance with the goals and objectives. The effectiveness of a meeting is measured by the proportionality of the desired result in relation to the costs required to achieve it.

Control and analysis. After the effectiveness of a business meeting has been achieved, it is necessary to monitor the result and conduct a thorough analysis. The ability to measure, analyze and control all data is the quality of a wise leader, capable of making a company a market leader.

Notes to a smart leader

A business meeting is best held at the beginning of the day, when employees are able to generate intelligent decision options.

The code of corporate ethics should specify the algorithm, schedule of meetings and its frequency, regulations, goals and objectives. It is best to hold such a meeting on Mondays, when you need to set mini-tasks for the week and summarize the results of the past reporting period.

Every employee should know the time, place and date of regular business meetings and be prepared for them. This point is best reflected in each employee's job description, indicating the degree of his responsibility and participation. This is the ethics of official relations, the violation of which entails serious illnesses of the team.

During meetings, resistance from employees quite often occurs, which must be diagnosed in a timely manner and skillfully removed, without leading to sabotage and internal conflicts of interest. If in companies with an authoritarian management style such resistance does not occur at meetings due to fear or uncertainty, it needs to be artificially provoked. Otherwise, in the process of carrying out and solving assigned tasks, serious problems may arise due to the disloyalty of employees to the company.

To prevent such practices, it is necessary to minimize problems at the stage of choosing a goal and assigning tasks to subordinates. To do this, it is necessary to distribute “earrings to all the sisters,” that is, to keep the staff busy with important tasks: entrust some with the difficult stages of development and implementation of the project, delegate control over execution to others, motivate others to perform “feats” by increasing their authority in the team by temporarily appointing acting as a line manager or demotivating particularly zealous employees.

Responsibility of employees for completing assigned tasks must be distributed so that they can be comfortably controlled. At each meeting, it is necessary to summarize and recognize particularly distinguished employees and punish those who are guilty and sabotage the work in front of the entire team. No discussions or decisions should be allowed behind the backs of employees, since there is immediately a danger of an outbreak of intra-company conflicts.

It is useful for every manager to know the differences between office meetings, planning meetings and briefings from brainstorming, exchange of opinions, and discussions. Both management formats involve receiving feedback, but in different ways. Business meetings are a technology for managing people and setting tactical and strategic tasks, and the format of the discussion is informal communication, a marker that the manager is inexperienced and does not know how to manage the course of the meeting and direct it in the right direction.

In addition, a business meeting is divided into:

Instructive, when the leader gives precise instructions and receives feedback from subordinates;

Operational, within which current tasks are solved;

It’s problematic when some problem of the team is sorted out and a step-by-step plan is developed to get out of the current crisis situation.

Many modern companies are guilty of confusing business formats, dragging the team into the abyss of confusion, conflicts and discussions of completely non-working issues. Format structuring is part of the culture, which is subject to strict corporate standards.

Assessing the effectiveness of business meetings

How to understand that a business meeting was conducted competently and extremely effectively? The following questions need to be answered:

Have the goals set for the event been achieved?

Has the entire agenda been covered? Have all the issues been discussed?

Did you meet the allotted regulations?

Are all decisions communicated to the implementers?

Did the performers understand their tasks and deadlines correctly?

When answering these questions, a quantitative component will arise - how many people are involved in solving the issue, how many working hours they need to complete tasks, how much money is needed for this, and so on. A quantitative marker is a good tool for analyzing performance over time and comparing with past periods.

As a rule, effectively conducted meetings, when all goals are achieved at the right time, produce tangible results.

Conducting a highly effective meeting is a real art, where the leader is the conductor, the secretary is the first violin, and the entire team is the whole orchestra. Careful preparation and competent conduct of a business meeting determines what score this living organism will perform - classical music that can evoke enthusiastic emotions and inspire future victories, or a cacophony of sounds that kills everything around.

Wishing you smart management moves, gentlemen!

Zhanna Pyatirikova especially for the business portal BZZN.ru

Most sales managers know how to communicate and sell well, but, unfortunately, stability, following a work plan, analyzing and analyzing the efforts made are not their strong suit. If a manager has a lot of orders this month, he inevitably relaxes: he starts making fewer cold calls and stops working with “asleep” clients.

At planning meetings, the head of the sales department can note the emerging decline in the manager’s work and bring to the employee’s attention that his shirking from work has been noticed and brought under control. Of course, managers will resist participation in the planning meeting in every possible way, citing the fact that they have absolutely no time, and right now the deal is on fire. You need to understand that it is the manager who, through planning meetings, implements the function of administrative management and organizes the systematic work of the team, without recessions or rush jobs.

How to organize and conduct a planning meeting in the most effective way?

Time

Planning meetings should be held in the morning. If the working day begins with a planning meeting, managers will no longer be late for work; in addition, the planning meeting will give a charge for work during the day.

Reporting

Managers should bring their reports for the previous day to the planning meeting: a log of calls and meetings and a sales report. The first document shows how the manager used his working time, the second - what results he achieved. Often, even at the stage of preparation for the planning meeting, it becomes obvious to the manager that he spent his efforts in the wrong direction, and the effectiveness of his work could have been higher. Another document that the manager prepares for the planning meeting is a list of planned calls and meetings. It is important! Firstly, a ready-made list means that the manager can start working immediately after the planning meeting is completed, and secondly, the manager can adjust this list and highlight priorities.

Regulations

On the one hand, a planning meeting should not turn into a multi-hour meeting; on the other hand, a formal meeting for five minutes will also not bring results. With proper organization, it is quite possible to complete it in half an hour. At the beginning of the planning meeting, the manager checks employee reports, and if the plan is not fulfilled (through calls, meetings or sales), he finds out the reason: error, negligence or objective circumstances. The work of each employee is given an objective assessment. This can be a simple verbal remark or praise, the main thing is that sales managers feel constant control from the manager - in this case they begin to work much better.

During the meeting, the manager must convey useful information to his subordinates and set clear tasks for them. If everything is done correctly, labor efficiency will increase; otherwise, the procedure for holding meetings should be reconsidered.

Do you often hold meetings? Do your employees often get something useful from them? Do they understand the goals and objectives you have given them?

Does their work efficiency increase after planning meetings? Are you receiving adequate feedback? If you answered “no” to at least one question, then you need to learn how to conduct effective meetings and planning sessions in order to waste a minimum of time on them and get the maximum benefit.

Effective meeting

With the help of meetings, communication is maintained between different departments and within the departments themselves, decisions made are implemented and motivation to perform work increases among individual employees. But only an effective meeting can solve these problems, so check yourself if your meetings meet the following criteria:

1. Format Compliance. There are several types of meetings: meeting, planning meeting and operational meeting. Each of these meetings has its own purposes and accordingly lasts for a different time. The operative is designed to solve the problem that just arose.

It usually lasts 5-10 minutes and brings together people directly related to the problem. The planning meeting is usually held every day in the morning and lasts 25-30 minutes. During this time, the manager needs to set tasks for the day, receive feedback on the results of the previous day and adjust plans if necessary.

The meeting aims to find a solution to a global problem, create a new offer for your market, develop a new motivation program, etc.

Often meetings are divided into two stages - the first is held in the evening, during which the goals of the meeting are set and the problems that will be discussed are outlined. In the morning, the second stage begins, which can last up to two hours. A full-fledged meeting is creativity in its purest form.

2. Specification of tasks. Each meeting should have clearly defined objectives that are announced to participants in advance. Deviation from the agenda is highly undesirable.

3. Strict regulations. A meeting must have a start and end time, regardless of whether everyone invited has attended. Set clear time limits, such as finishing agenda item 1 in 25 minutes.

For each speaker, set aside a certain time - 5 minutes is enough, this will teach people to speak to the point. If you hear extraneous conversations or deviations from the topic, stop these attempts and save your time.

4. Optimal composition. The people concerned must be present at the meeting. Just sit and listen, don’t invite anyone. Let everyone mind their own business.

5. Word to everyone. Each participant in the meeting should have the opportunity to express his opinion on a particular issue. Do not interfere and, especially, do not interrupt the employee’s speech, even if it goes against your point of view. Do you need adequate feedback?

6. Record keeping. The agenda is not the only mandatory meeting document. The minutes, which record all the main points, the employees who spoke in order of priority, their opinion on a particular issue, and most importantly the results of the meeting, is a very useful paper.

Be sure to send a newsletter to the meeting participants so that they always have it at hand to clarify any points. This will make it more convenient to monitor the implementation of assigned tasks and analyze the results obtained. It is the “task - results - control - task” scheme that allows you to make meetings the most efficient and concise.

7. Planning of the meeting. Every employee should know when he will next be invited to the meeting room. Suddenness is a bad assistant in organizing meetings; participants do not have time to prepare or do not come at all due to absence from the office.

If some problem arose suddenly and you decided to convene a task force to solve it, get ready for the answers “I don’t know,” “I need to check,” and “I’ll give you a report later.”

How to prepare and conduct an effective meeting?

To have an effective meeting, you must first prepare for it. Before the meeting begins, the leader should clarify the following questions:

• what goals the meeting pursues and what tasks it solves.
• what is the format of the meeting, what are the roles of the meeting participants. The roles of employees are assigned in advance: there must be a chairman and a secretary. Also determine the exact start and end time of the meeting.
• what is the structure of the meeting? A typical structure looks like this:
• greetings;
• announcement of the meeting’s goals, objectives, format;
• discussion and analysis of existing problems;
• receiving feedback from performers;
• analysis of results and setting tasks for the near future;
• summarizing.
• what are the rules of the meeting? Determine the exact time for working on each item on the agenda, set aside time for a break if the meeting involves a long time.
• what documents will be needed. Prepare all the necessary information that will be of interest to the participants, send out materials so that they are studied in advance.
• Is a meeting necessary? Before sending out invitations to a meeting, check whether it is really necessary.

Answer these questions for yourself:

• Do the tasks you set need to be solved today?
• What should participants take away from the meeting?
• How should their work change after the meeting?
• Has all the necessary information been collected? Will you get a “don't know” answer to any question?
• Is there another way to solve the problem without holding a meeting?

Remember the simple rules for effective meetings, keep the audience's attention on the main goal, give the discussion a positive or neutral tone, and encourage them to express their own opinions.

Then you will get an increase in the efficiency of your employees and at the same time reduce the amount of time wasted.

Organize and conduct the planning meeting as efficiently as possible.

Find a solution to the problem stated for discussion or set the direction for the development of the situation in a constructive direction.

It is interesting to hold a planning meeting so that the participants have no time to yawn and do not feel like they have wasted time.

Action plan

1. Get acquainted with the proposed method of organizing a planning meeting.

2. Prepare yourself, prepare the necessary materials and invite participants.

3. Hold a planning meeting.

4. Summarize the results of the planning meeting and familiarize all participants with them.

How to organize a planning meeting

First, what is required to conduct a planning meeting is the question or topic of the planning meeting. What work problem do you want to solve? What positive effect for the work of the organization will be the result of the planning meeting. Familiarize your planning meeting participants with this issue in advance. This way, you will save time during the planning meeting, and the discussion participants may already come with interesting ideas on your issue.

Second– these are the people who will participate in the planning meeting. What profile specialists and what level of managers, or what line employees do you need to find the answer to the question posed?

Third– location of the planning meeting. It is important that this is a separate room or even a special meeting room. Where there will be enough space for everyone, outsiders (employees not participating in the planning meeting) will not be able to disturb you and the phones will not ring.

Fourth– time of the planning meeting. It is desirable that it be convenient for all participants or permanent. For example, daily planning meetings are held every day at exactly 8:30. In any case, when choosing the time for the planning meeting, you will have to focus on its most important participants. And prescribe it in advance, for several hours, or more correctly, days.

Fifth– regulations for the planning meeting. It is important not only to start the planning meeting on time, but also to finish it on time. Determine in advance the order in which issues will be discussed and the time allocated to each participant. Limit it, this will make the reports concise and as informative as possible. For example, one speech is no more than 10 minutes.

Sixth- improvised materials. The minimum required is pens for all participants and paper. Take care of this yourself, in advance, so that you don’t have to waste discussion time looking for what and what to write on. You may also need: flip chart, projector, screen, laptop, printer. All equipment must be prepared and tested in advance.

Seventh– leader of the planning meeting or secretary who will record the process and results of the discussion of your issue.

Formats of planning meetings

1. Summing up, information planning meeting.

Such planning meetings can be held weekly at the beginning of the week for heads of all departments of your organization.

Why are such planning meetings needed?

2. Planning meeting - distribution of current tasks.

Usually held at the beginning of each working day. The format is obvious - the manager issues tasks for the day to his subordinates. There is also no need to stretch the time - everyone received the task and went to complete it.

3. Planning meeting to discuss the issue raised.

You formulate your question in advance, which was formulated for you life itself and the current situation in your market. Voice the purpose of the planning meeting and send this information to the participants. Ask them to prepare (if necessary) on this issue. Determine the rules and secretary of the planning meeting in advance. The results of the planning meeting are sent to all participants. The time for such a planning meeting is no more than two hours. But there are situations when more time is required. In this case, plan organized breaks of 15-20 minutes for tea and just relaxation. (Prepare tea and sweets in advance too!)

4. Creative planning meeting.

Requests for work in coaching
1) Development of creativity resource for growth (self-development, professional growth, business development)
2) Resolving internal conflicts, overcoming crises using the resource of creativity