Being in a meeting and not knowing what you're there for is never a good use of your time. Especially, when there's pressing work waiting to be done right when you get out of a very ambiguous meeting.
Many meetings are unproductive and end without reaching a consensus or clear decisions. In fact, a Bloomberg study states that unproductive meetings cost large companies $100 million annually.
With the right approach and planning, you can turn these unproductive hours into more focused, collaborative, and effective meetings that deliver results.
Learn how to run an effective meeting, the traits of a successful meeting, and how asynchronous communication tools like Loom can streamline your workflow and boost productivity.
What does an effective meeting look like?
Your meeting is running effortlessly. Each participant contributes to the discussion, guided by a clear agenda. The meeting concludes with a clear decision and the next steps for each team member. Everyone leaves feeling informed, motivated, and aware of their roles and responsibilities.
This is an effective meeting in action.
Such meetings have traits in common that make them effective:
Clear objectives and agenda
Prepared meeting participants
Structured discussion with time limits
Decisive decision-making
Actionable outcomes
Positive experience
If your meeting lacks one or more of these traits, consider whether it’s even necessary to host it. For example, if you can’t define a clear objective or purpose for the meeting or cannot gather all the key participants, asynchronous video messaging might be a more effective alternative.
Where asynchronous comms can save you time
Productive meetings don’t always have to be a one-on-one or in-person event. In fact, hosting synchronous meetings for every minute issue can be a drain on your team’s productivity.
A recent study found that increased meeting load led to employees being 33% more likely to be physically exhausted and 24% more likely to be mentally exhausted at the end of the work day.
Think about the times you sat through a meeting where only the first few minutes were productive and relevant. Or when getting everyone together for an online meeting was nearly impossible due to different time zones.
Asynchronous video communication tools, like Loom, eliminate these issues.
They offer an alternative for sharing information, updates, and feedback without the need for everyone to be available at the same time. This negates the need to disrupt your team’s workflow and allows them to view the video and respond at their convenience.
You can create a Loom video within minutes and walk your team through a design, share project updates, give feedback, send a personal message, and more, ultimately reducing live meetings. Your team members can watch these asynchronous Loom videos at their convenience and at their own pace. They can even create their own Loom videos in response or leave comments at specific moments in your video.
How to run an effective meeting: 6 steps for maximum impact
Meetings often get a bad rap for being unproductive and time-wasting. However, when done right, they can be powerful tools for collaboration and decision-making.
Want to make the most out of the live meetings you do have? Follow these steps to run an effective meeting.
1. Prep for the meeting: Set crystal clear objectives and agendas
A recent survey revealed that meetings aren’t fulfilling their intended purpose, highlighting poor agenda planning and meeting management as common contributors. Specifically, over 70% of respondents claimed that meetings are ineffective for creating goal clarity, brainstorming ideas, making decisions, and connecting with colleagues.
The solution lies in establishing clear objectives. Clearly defined objectives help reduce wasted hours, increase engagement during meetings, and improve workplace communication and decision-making.
Without a clear objective, a meeting might as well be an email.
So, how do you craft clear objectives and agendas before meetings to ensure better productivity? Here are some tips:
Start with the “why.” What’s the main purpose of the meeting? Are you trying to brainstorm ideas, gather feedback, provide feedback, or make a decision?
Set specific goals. Avoid vague objectives such as “Brainstorming marketing strategy.” Instead, set specific objectives with measurable outcomes, like “Decide on the Q3 marketing budget.”
Limit your scope. Don’t tackle multiple objectives in a single meeting. Instead, stick to the most critical items and leave the rest for other meetings to help avoid confusion and overload.
Craft your agenda based on objectives. Based on your goals, create a detailed agenda outlining the topics you intend to discuss, the time allotted for each, and who will lead the discussion.
Communicate clearly. Share the objectives and agenda with all the participants in advance. This gives them time to research and come fully prepared and ready to contribute.
Pro tip: If your agenda is complex and has multiple steps, use a video recording and communication tool like Loom. This allows you to record and share a short video that walks your team through each step, helping ensure clarity. Plus, your team can refer back to the video if needed.
For example, a senior director recorded this meeting agenda with Loom to share with his team ahead of the meeting:
Following this approach before sending the meeting invitation will help you set expectations and ensure everyone arrives prepared, allowing more meeting time for discussion and decision-making.
2. Curate a guest list and designate roles pre-meeting
What differentiates a well-orchestrated symphony? Each musician knows their part, and everyone plays their instrument in sync.
Similarly, in a meeting, assigning specific roles allows participants to contribute their unique strengths. This helps steer the meeting toward its objectives.
Start by curating a list of guests whose presence will help you achieve your objectives. Once you have the guest list, assign roles based on each person’s skill set.
What roles should you assign to turn chaotic meetings into productive collaborations? Here are some important ones:
Facilitator: Guides the meeting, ensuring it stays on track and that everyone follows the ground rules and gets to express their ideas.
Notetaker: Captures key points, meeting notes, action items, and decisions.
Timekeeper: Ensures the meeting adheres to the schedule to avoid wasting time.
Participant roles: Depending on your meeting objectives, you can assign specific roles to participants, including subject matter experts or idea generators.
When everyone clearly understands who is doing what, the discourse becomes more focused, and you maximize your time.
3. Start with a focused recap
Despite providing a detailed information card, flight attendants still verbally guide passengers through safety procedures and all the dos and don’ts before the plane takes off.
A similar approach right before you start the meeting will help you set the stage for a focused and productive conversation.
A summary of key points and goals you intend to discuss during the meeting can help your participants:
Refocus on the shared purpose
Recall pre-meeting materials
Clarify any lingering questions before starting the conversation
If you provided any written information or videos ahead of time, briefly mention them to jog everyone’s memory. Or, if you used Loom to document your meeting agenda, it’s easy to show the video at the beginning of the meeting if needed.
4. Dive into a time-boxed discussion
After the focused recap and with a clear agenda and objectives in place, it’s time for the main event: the time-boxed discussion.
For the uninitiated, timeboxing means allocating a specific amount of time for each agenda item.
This approach helps keep the conversation moving and prevents the same topic and speaker from monopolizing the entire discussion. It also allows participants to prioritize key issues and reach the final decision.
Pro tip: Strictly verbal meetings can get monotonous. To break this monotony and get your points across more clearly, incorporate visual aids into your meeting, such as screen sharing, whiteboards, presentations, and visual data.
5. Decision time
The inability to reach clear decisions drains resources, time, and team morale.
However, a structured approach to decision-making can rectify this problem. Here are some ways you can reach an actionable decision by the end of your meeting:
Summarize key points: Repeat all the key points discussed during the meeting to help participants refocus.
Seek consensus: Encourage everyone to participate in open discussion and make the final decision. Block time in your agenda for this part as well.
Use a voting system: If consensus doesn’t work, implement a voting system based on majority or weighted votes.
Document the decision: Create a shared document or a quick Loom video to document the outcome for future reference.
Remember, the end goal of your meeting should be to turn discussions into action-oriented decisions. Only tangible outcomes will decide your meeting’s success, not how long it was.
6. Maximize post-meeting productivity with action items and next steps
Congratulations, you’ve reached an important decision in your meeting. But the real work is just beginning.
Whatever happens after the meeting is equally, if not more, important than the pre-meeting prep and the live meeting itself.
This is when you must put things into motion and translate your decision into tangible progress.
However, statistics suggest that 54% of people leave meetings without a clear idea of their next task. This lack of clarity and action plan can undermine your progress during the meeting, leading to confusion, delays, and missed opportunities.
To avoid this common pitfall, dedicate time to define clear action items and the next steps after each meeting.
How will you define action items and ensure meeting outcomes don’t just fade into the background? Here are some tips:
Clearly document: Make sure the meeting, action items, and deadlines are readily available and easily accessible. Use a shared document or project management and productivity tools like Airtable or Trello to centralize information.
Assign ownership: Assign action items to a specific team member in your project management tool. They’ll enhance teamwork and help you track who’s responsible for what task.
Set deadlines: Establish clear and realistic deadlines for each action item to keep everyone accountable.
Define deliverables: Clearly define what you expect from each action item—is it a completed task, additional research, or a decision?
Don’t forget to follow up with your team to check in, review progress, and resolve any problems they might have.
And rather than scheduling another meeting for a simple follow-up, you can create an asynchronous Loom video. With one click, you can share the video with multiple team members to align your team and keep them updated.
How to tell your meeting went well
To truly gauge meeting success, look for these key indicators:
Did you meet your objectives? If you reached a final decision, solved a problem, or generated intended ideas, your meeting was likely a success.
Did all participants engage? A meeting is successful when stakeholders and team members are actively involved, share ideas, and ask questions.
Can you develop actionable next steps? If you can form actionable tasks and responsibilities by the end of the meeting, this means the meeting was productive.
Did your meeting stay on track? Time management and alignment with the predefined meeting agenda are other signs of an effective meeting.
Did attendants leave positive feedback? Seek feedback from the participants via a quick survey or casual conversation.
Interestingly, another important sign of a truly effective meeting is that it couldn’t have been replaced by asynchronous communication.
If, by the end of the meeting, it seems that a simple Loom video could have achieved the same results, perhaps the meeting wasn’t necessary.
This also shows how asynchronous communication improves synchronous meetings. Using video messaging for routine updates lets you save actual meeting time for more important discussions.
Turn talk into action with effective meetings and a little help from Loom
Effective meetings don’t just happen by accident. You have to create a decisive agenda to turn time-draining meetings into collaborative discussions.
Remember, the goal isn’t just to host a meeting. It’s to drive results and discuss the next steps and action items.
It’s also worth noting that not every discussion has to turn into a meeting. Sometimes, even a single email or an asynchronous video message would suffice.
Use asynchronous communication tools like Loom to create brief videos to share information, updates, and feedback with your team. If the meeting is necessary, you can still create a Loom video to share your meeting objectives and agenda ahead of time. This helps participants come prepared and know what to expect from the meeting.
Ready to run effective meetings and enhance team communication? Start your free trial today and make your next meeting more impactful with Loom.