How to Run More Productive Meetings: 9 Tactics From Real-World Professionals

Do you want to run meetings that are more impactful, focused, and respectful of everyone’s time?

In this article, you’ll learn nine field-tested tactics drawn directly from the real experiences of professionals who face the same meeting challenges you do - and have found practical solutions you can apply tomorrow.

The underlying problem

Recently, I conducted a workshop on how to run effective meetings.

It immediately became overwhelmingly evident that professionals were frustrated with the way most meetings are conducted.

They shared common complaints like:

• "The meetings just started going off on tangents."
  

• "I never received an agenda, so I have no idea what it was about."
  

• "The meeting leader just liked to listen to the sound of their own voice."
  

• "I have so many meetings, I don't have time to do the real work I need to do."
  

• "The boss doesn't have a plan for the meeting, we show up, and he expects us to educate him."

What is at stake: The financial, team, and reputational cost

Leading poor-quality meetings has several significant costs:

1. The reputational cost. When you conduct a disorganized meeting, you unintentionally send the signal that you are incompetent and that you do not respect the time of the people in attendance. This affects how they see you and also influences their willingness to attend and contribute to future sessions.
   

2. The financial cost. On a basic level, think about the hourly rate of each individual in the room. If the meeting is going nowhere, it is just burning money.
   

3. Opportunity cost. If a person is in your meeting, it means they are not elsewhere doing something that would be a better use of their time.
   

4. Morale cost. When you bring the team together, they dedicate time, attention, and energy to the task at hand. But if the meeting is poorly planned and goes nowhere, the result is often a dip in team morale.
   

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What actually works

During the session, the professionals shared some extremely valuable tactics they actually use.

Tactic #1: Always include an agenda

This was by far the easiest and highest leverage practice that, if applied tomorrow, would transform the efficacy of any meeting.

Tactic # 2: Define a clear objective

This was another high-leverage tactic that was repeatedly mentioned. If one did this, it would make it much easier to keep meetings on track on the occasions that they started to veer off track.

Tactic # 3: Keep the meeting and people on track with a timer

A common challenge that came up was that meetings strayed off track because conversations often went off on tangents, and some speakers were long-winded and liked to "hear the sound of their voice".

A way to apply this tactic immediately is to use a visible timer. This is an example of modifying the environment to influence behavior change, rather than relying on the awareness and efforts of individuals in the meeting.

Tactic #4: Build your agenda, thinking of the perspective of the attendees

One participant mentioned that her big "aha" moment of the session was when another participant suggested that she take a moment to reflect on her agenda from the perspective of those who would be in attendance, rather than solely from her own perspective.

A way to do this is to have a colleague double-check your agenda and imagine themselves as a participant attending and voice what they would want to see in the agenda from their perspective.

Tactic #5: Know who needs to be in the room.. and who does not

A story that was brought up involved a meeting held to address a series of processes that needed improvement.

Many of the solutions proposed during the session centered on technology-based solutions. The missed opportunity was that there was no representative from the IT department present in the room at the time who could have provided immediate assistance. Next time - plan ahead and invite them.

Tactic #6: Take ownership and keep the meeting on track

One participant referenced a situation they experienced where the meeting was clearly about one topic. Still, another participant came with a personal agenda, making every attempt to steer the meeting's focus in the direction of what they wanted to discuss.

The way to handle this was to take ownership of the meeting and tell that individual directly that we will "park that", and that they needed to return the focus of the meeting to the main objective.

Tactic #7: Use technology to assist you

Towards the end of the session, the topic of technology arose in the context of the time savings of using the transcribe function built into the Microsoft Teams video conferencing tool. 

Further to that, it was suggested to take the instantly generated transcription and put it into an LLM like ChatGPT ot Copilot and have it summarized.

Tactic #8: Move meetings from real-time communication to asynchronous

An idea that emerged was to establish a dedicated Microsoft Teams Channel to host non-real-time, asynchronous meetings that did not require an immediate decision and were not urgent.

An example was that the meeting leader would create a Teams channel, and within that channel, they would initiate a conversation focused on one specific problem. The other members of the group would contribute when and how they could. This, in fact, is an inclusive leadership practice.

Tactic #9: Be aware of the time of your meeting

How would you react if a salesperson called you at 5 a.m.? Probably not very happy. It is the wrong time.

Meetings at 4:30 pm on a Friday, as many professionals are preparing to go home for the weekend, can create a sense of ill will. Be aware of the time.

Closing Reflections

Ultimately, there are many more ways to have productive meetings, but these were some of the highlights that I thought would help you lead the room.