By Mel Brown
This month we will wrap up our focus on making meetings more productive. In the January column we pointed out, “turning time spent in meetings into productive time—time that produces sustainable results—has to be a priority for any effective leader. Like any other leadership skill, meeting management can be learned.”
In that same issue we discussed “actions taken prior to the meeting” and in last month’s column we discussed “actions taken during the meeting.” In this month’s column we will focus on “actions taken after the meeting.”
As pointed out in the February column, “failing to perform any of the three groups of meeting management activities will result in the meetings being unproductive and not worth the time you invested in them. Performing the steps in each of the three areas will result in meetings that guide participants to achieve expected, positive, and constructive results.”
Failing to follow up with actions after the meeting can be just as fatal to meeting effectiveness as failing to properly perform the first two sets of activities in meeting management.
Actions Taken After the Meeting
To be successful with actions taken after the meeting, the groundwork must be laid during the meeting by creating a follow-up plan that includes the action items. Effective follow-up plans include the specific action item, the name of the person who is responsible for the accomplishment of the action item, the due date of the action items, and an agreement about what constitutes completion of the action item.
Publish minutes: To ensure effective follow-up after the meeting, you should publish your minutes and action plan within 24 hours. People will most effectively contribute to results if they get started on action items right away. They still have a fresh memory of the meeting, the discussion and the rationale for the chosen direction. They remain enthusiastic and ready to get started. Since most people wait for the minutes to arrive before they begin to work on their assignments from the meeting, a delay in the distribution of minutes will have a tremendously negative impact on your results.
Meeting minutes don’t need to include everything everyone said. They do need to include the following:
- Date, time and location
- Attendees
- Key points raised and decisions made
- Motions and voting results if votes taken
- Who is responsible for what follow-up action and by when, and
- Name of the Recorder
Most word processing software includes templates for agendas and minutes.
Follow-up by meeting leader: Effective meeting leaders can improve meeting results by following up with each person who has an action item mid-way between meetings. Your goal is to check progress and ensure that tasks are underway. Remember that what you ask about gets accomplished.
Establish accountability expectations: Establishing the norm or custom of accountability for results begins early in your meeting cycle. Often people need a gentle nudge to remind them about completing action items. Leaders need to check to ensure that action is taking place as agreed. The check can be an e-mail or phone call to the point person or a meeting devoted to checking on progress. Not checking may send a message that not much action is really expected.
Checking on the progress also gives the leader an opportunity to help the employee deal with any real roadblocks to progress and to decide how to proceed.
In addition to follow-up by the facilitator mid-way between meetings, the leader must ensure that participants understand that failure to fulfill their assignments is unacceptable.
During the next meeting the leader should report on progress and outcomes, and expect that all will have been accomplished.
Debrief the meeting process for continued improvement: The practice of debriefing each meeting is a powerful tool for continuous improvement. Participants take turns discussing what was effective or ineffective about the current meeting process. They also discuss the progress they feel the group is making on the topic of the meeting.
Taking continuous improvement to another level, successful teams debrief their entire project as well as the process to determine how effectively they managed to create results. Future meetings reflect the evaluation. Meetings evolve as an even more effective tool for creating organization results.
In conclusion: Results are achievable and predictable from well-planned and implemented meetings. Following the recommendations I have provided in this series of columns on “How to Make Your Meetings More Productive” will help ensure that meeting participants achieve expected, positive, and constructive outcomes from the time invested in meetings.
Questions regarding this column or suggestions of topics for future columns should be sent to ceo@melbrown.org.