Efficient Meetings - 7 Tips To Run an Effective Meeting

Summary

In this video, Adriana Girdler, a productivity specialist, shares seven practical tips for running effective and efficient meetings. She highlights the importance of avoiding time-wasting update meetings, preparing well in advance, using meeting kits, and setting clear expectations with participants. Adriana also emphasizes the need for summarizing action items and sending follow-up notes promptly. By focusing on purposeful meetings that encourage resolution and brainstorming, and by managing time and expectations, viewers can transform their meetings into productive sessions. Additional resources and templates are available to further improve meeting efficiency.

Takeaways

• 🚫 Ban update meetings: Avoid holding meetings just for updates. Use emails or one-on-ones for that instead.
• 📄 Be prepared: Have all necessary documents and materials ready well before the meeting, not last-minute.
• 📦 Meeting kit: Always bring essential tools like sticky notes, sharpies, and voting materials to ensure smooth flow.
• ⏰ Arrive early: Set up your meeting space ahead of time to avoid technical issues and delays.
• 📜 Use meeting rules: Establish clear rules for meetings and review them with participants at the start.
• 🛑 Timeouts: Ask for permission to call 'timeouts' during meetings to stay on track and avoid distractions.
• 📝 Parking lot: Use a 'parking lot' system for off-topic ideas to acknowledge them without derailing the meeting.
• ✅ Summarize action items: End every meeting with a summary of agreed-upon tasks, responsibilities, and due dates.
• 📧 Send follow-up promptly: Send out meeting notes within 24 hours to keep everyone aligned and accountable.
• 🤔 Purpose-driven meetings: Ensure every meeting has a clear purpose—like problem-solving or decision-making—rather than just updates.

Q & A

What is the main reason Adriana Girdler emphasizes the importance of running effective meetings?

Adriana Girdler stresses the importance of effective meetings because ineffective meetings are the number one time waster at work, as found in a 2012 salary.com survey. She also notes that this issue has been getting worse over time.

Why does Adriana recommend banning update meetings?

Adriana recommends banning update meetings because they are often a major waste of time. She suggests using technology to send out summaries via email or conducting one-on-ones instead, reserving meetings for brainstorming, decision-making, or problem-solving.

What should be included in the meeting preparation stage according to Adriana?

During the meeting preparation stage, Adriana suggests gathering all necessary documentation, preparing pre-reading materials, and ensuring participants have adequate time to prepare. She emphasizes the importance of being purposeful with the meeting’s agenda.

What does Adriana mean by having a 'meeting kit'?

A 'meeting kit' refers to a set of tools and materials Adriana recommends having on hand during meetings, such as sticky notes, Sharpies, stickers for voting, and white paper. This ensures everything needed is readily available to avoid interrupting the meeting flow.

Why is arriving early to set up for meetings important?

Arriving early ensures the meeting is set up properly and avoids delays caused by 'technical difficulties,' such as issues with screen-sharing or conference calls. This helps the meeting start on time and run smoothly.

What tools does Adriana use to keep meetings on track?

Adriana uses three tools: meeting rules to establish clear expectations, time-outs to pause discussions that veer off course, and a parking lot to table discussions that need to be addressed later, ensuring participants stay focused.

What should be done at the end of every meeting to ensure effectiveness?

At the end of each meeting, Adriana recommends summarizing all agreed-upon action items, assigning responsibilities, and setting deadlines. This helps ensure tasks are completed and keeps everyone accountable.

What is the significance of sending meeting notes within 24 hours?

Sending meeting notes within 24 hours, ideally within two to three hours, ensures that the information is fresh in participants' minds and helps keep everyone on track with their assigned tasks and responsibilities.

Why is it important to ban update meetings and focus on purposeful meetings?

Focusing on purposeful meetings, like those for brainstorming, risk management, or approvals, maximizes productivity and ensures that the time spent in meetings is used to resolve issues or make progress, rather than simply sharing updates.

How can Adriana's meeting tips improve corporate productivity?

By applying Adriana's tips, such as banning update meetings, preparing thoroughly, using tools to keep meetings focused, and summarizing action items, organizations can hold more effective and efficient meetings, reducing wasted time and improving overall productivity.

Outlines

00:00

🚀 Introduction to Running Effective Meetings

Adriana Girdler introduces herself as a Productivity Specialist and discusses the importance of running efficient meetings. She shares that ineffective meetings are a major time waster in organizations, as shown by a 2012 survey. Adriana emphasizes the need to rethink how meetings are conducted, focusing on solutions, brainstorming, and purposeful engagement rather than mere updates. She hints at sharing seven key tips to enhance meeting productivity.

05:05

💡 Tip 1: Ban Update Meetings

Adriana advocates for eliminating 'update meetings,' which she identifies as a significant time waster. Instead, she suggests using technology to share updates and reserving meetings for decision-making, brainstorming, and resolving issues. This shift will save time and help teams focus on more meaningful discussions. The key is to rethink the purpose of each meeting and use other methods, like email, to share updates.

10:07

📑 Tip 2: Prepare Documentation Early

Proper documentation is crucial for meeting preparation. Adriana stresses the importance of gathering materials well in advance, rather than rushing the night before. This includes pre-read documents for brainstorming sessions, agenda items, and ensuring participants have the necessary information. She points out the need for thoughtful planning and suggests visiting her website for free agenda templates and other helpful resources.

🧰 Tip 3: Build a Meeting Kit

Adriana introduces the concept of a 'meeting kit'—a collection of tools like sticky notes, Sharpies, and white paper, which are essential for brainstorming and decision-making meetings. Having a prepared kit ensures meetings run smoothly without interruptions, preventing time from being wasted on gathering materials mid-meeting. This approach supports maintaining the meeting's flow and effectiveness.

⏰ Tip 4: Arrive Early to Set Up

Arriving early is crucial for setting up a successful meeting, especially if the facilitator is responsible for technology such as conference calls or screen-sharing. Adriana points out that technical issues often delay meetings, leading to wasted time. By being early and prepared, the meeting can start promptly, avoiding common delays due to last-minute setups.

🛑 Tip 5: Use Meeting Rules, Timeouts, and Parking Lots

Adriana outlines three essential tools for keeping participants on track: meeting rules, timeouts, and parking lots. She recommends setting clear rules at the beginning, using timeouts to manage off-track discussions, and employing parking lots to capture ideas without derailing the meeting. These tools help maintain structure while respecting participants’ input and ensuring that valuable contributions are not lost.

📝 Tip 6: Summarize Agreed-Upon Action Items

At the end of every meeting, Adriana suggests spending 5-10 minutes reviewing and summarizing the agreed-upon action items. This ensures clarity on responsibilities and deadlines, preventing confusion later. Many organizations skip this step, leading to missed follow-ups and unclear task assignments. Properly summarizing at the meeting's conclusion ensures tasks are understood and executed.

📧 Tip 7: Post-Meeting Follow-Up within 24 Hours

Adriana emphasizes the importance of sending meeting notes and action items within 24 hours (preferably within 2-3 hours). She advises using templates to streamline the process and keep the momentum going while the meeting content is still fresh in attendees' minds. Quick follow-up helps participants stay accountable and ensures tasks are completed efficiently.

📅 Recap and Final Thoughts

Adriana recaps the three stages of effective meetings: preparation, the meeting itself, and post-meeting follow-up. She reiterates the importance of banning update meetings and focusing on purposeful meetings that drive results. Adriana encourages viewers to check out the additional resources available on her website, such as her book and templates, to improve their meeting strategies and create more productive workplaces.

👏 Conclusion and Call to Action

Adriana concludes the video by stressing how learning to run effective and efficient meetings can positively impact the corporate world. She encourages viewers to like, subscribe, and share the video with colleagues, as spreading this knowledge can lead to significant improvements in how meetings are conducted in organizations.

Keywords

💡Ineffective meetings

Ineffective meetings are gatherings that fail to achieve their purpose, often resulting in wasted time and unproductive work. The video emphasizes that meetings should focus on decision-making, brainstorming, or problem-solving, rather than being simple update sessions. In 2012, a survey by salary.com found that ineffective meetings were the number one time-waster at work, illustrating the negative impact they can have on organizational productivity.

💡Update meetings

Update meetings are gatherings where participants simply provide status updates, which Adriana Girdler advises against. She stresses that these meetings are a major time-waster and recommends banning them altogether, encouraging the use of technology (e.g., emails) to share updates instead. According to Girdler, meetings should focus on collaboration, problem-solving, and moving projects forward, rather than just sharing information.

💡Meeting preparation

Meeting preparation involves planning and organizing materials and agendas before the meeting. This is a key stage in Girdler’s method for running effective meetings. She stresses the importance of preparing documents well in advance and ensuring participants have time to review them. Proper preparation ensures the meeting runs smoothly and efficiently, and prevents last-minute scrambling.

💡Meeting kit

A meeting kit refers to the essential tools and materials needed to run a productive meeting. Girdler mentions having items like sticky notes, markers, and voting stickers in her kit when facilitating brainstorming sessions. This kit ensures everything necessary is at hand, minimizing disruptions and keeping the flow of the meeting intact.

💡Meeting rules

Meeting rules are guidelines set at the start of a meeting to ensure order and focus. Girdler advocates for reviewing these rules at the beginning of every session to set expectations. Examples include staying on topic and respecting time limits. Establishing clear rules helps maintain productivity and keeps the meeting on track.

💡Parking lot

The parking lot is a technique used to manage off-topic discussions by temporarily 'parking' ideas that don’t fit into the current meeting’s agenda. Girdler recommends using a parking lot to capture participants' ideas without derailing the meeting’s flow. The parked items are revisited later, either after the meeting or in a separate discussion, ensuring important points aren't lost while maintaining meeting efficiency.

💡Summarize action items

Summarizing action items means reviewing and confirming tasks and responsibilities agreed upon during the meeting. Girdler emphasizes the importance of dedicating the last 5-10 minutes of a meeting to this step, ensuring everyone understands their tasks and associated deadlines. This practice helps keep meetings productive by ensuring accountability and clarity on next steps.

💡Post-meeting follow-up

Post-meeting follow-up is the process of sending out meeting notes, action items, and other relevant materials within a short period after the meeting. Girdler suggests sending follow-up communications within 2-3 hours, or at most within 24 hours, to keep tasks fresh in participants' minds and ensure they stay on track with their responsibilities. This step is crucial for maintaining momentum and accountability.

💡Technical difficulties

Technical difficulties refer to issues with technology during a meeting, such as problems with screen-sharing or conference call setups. Girdler highlights how these issues often delay meetings and disrupt the flow. She advises arriving early to ensure everything is set up and functioning properly before the meeting starts, helping prevent these disruptions.

💡Time-out

A time-out is a tool used by facilitators to pause the meeting and address issues such as running out of time or breaking a meeting rule. Girdler compares this to a referee calling a time-out in sports. She advises asking for participants’ permission to use time-outs at the beginning of the meeting. This tool helps keep discussions on track while still respecting participants’ contributions.

Highlights

Stop holding update meetings—they are the number one time-waster and should be replaced by emails or one-on-ones.

Meetings should be purposeful, focused on problem resolution, brainstorming, or approvals.

Prepare all documentation well in advance, ensuring attendees have time to prepare properly.

Make use of a 'meeting kit' containing tools like sticky notes, markers, and voting stickers for brainstorming and risk management.

Arrive early to set up meetings to avoid technical difficulties and delays.

Use 'meeting rules,' 'timeouts,' and a 'parking lot' to maintain meeting flow and ensure all voices are heard.

Summarize action items at the end of the meeting to ensure clarity and accountability.

Send out meeting summaries and action items within 24 hours, ideally within 2-3 hours to keep attendees on track.

Meeting preparation, the meeting itself, and post-meeting tasks are all crucial stages for effective meeting management.

Meeting rules can help participants understand what is expected and improve overall engagement.

Use technology to eliminate unnecessary meetings, improving overall efficiency and productivity.

At the start of meetings, ask for permission to 'call timeouts' to keep the meeting on track.

A 'parking lot' allows you to capture ideas and topics that need attention without derailing the main discussion.

Effective post-meeting follow-up ensures that decisions and tasks are clearly communicated and followed through.

Using a structured approach to meetings can significantly reduce wasted time, creating a more efficient work environment.

Transcripts

Are you meeting all day and working all night? Stop this madness!

Find out how you can run more effective and efficient meetings by watching this

video.

Hi my name is Adriana Girdler. I'm a Productivity Specialist, President of

CornerStone Dynamics and MyVisual Vision.com. Today I'm going to share

with you my top seven tips that I use all the time for running meetings, and

why is this even something that you want to think about? Because I get called to

run meetings all the time with top organizations and this is something

which over and over again I find to be tried-and-true,

never fails me and I always get complimented on it. So take note, get your

pen and paper out, and let's start talking about how to run effective and

efficient meetings. So why are we even looking at this, well back in 2012

salary.com did a survey, and they found that the number one time waster at work

was ineffective meetings. They just wasted tons of time, and that went up

from the number three spot in 2008, and I promise you it's not getting any better.

More and more I see meetings are becoming more ineffective and less

efficient and I really can't pinpoint why this is occurring. But all I know is

we have to go to the root and teach people how to run proper meetings, so

let's go on to my tips that I want to share with you, now in order to even look

at these tips we've got to think of meetings in kind of these three buckets.

The first bucket is meeting preparation, the second bucket is actual meetings

themselves, and then the third bucket is post meeting. Now if you look at a

meeting and you consider in all those three stages, that's a huge benefit,

because meetings aren't just the meeting that you are attending, it goes beyond that,

it's a preparation and the post as well. So on that note here are my top seven

tips. So let's talk about the first section meeting preparation. So tip

number one is, I would like for you to ban all the update meetings and I want

you to rethink your meetings, no more updates, that is probably the number one

time waster I see all the time, meetings need to be purposeful they should be

about resolution, brainstorming and any activity from like risk management

approvals, things where when you're bringing people in a room and you need

them together in order to move forward on an issue or to create ideas,

that's what you use a meeting for, not updates. We have amazing technology so

let's use that technology, ban those update meetings, and you will see a huge

difference. So from now on, in your pre meeting preparation, is ask yourself, what

meeting are you running? I it's an update meeting, don't even bother sending

out that invite. I want you to put some sort of summary in an email and send it

out to people that way, or do your one-on-ones and get your information but

do not do a meeting for an update. That's the greatest gift you can give to your

team members and the biggest paradigm shift for you, in order to run meetings

more effectively and efficiently. Tip number two, is get all your

documentation in order, what? Yeah, yeah I know I know Adriana,

that's probably simple and everyone goes "of course we do it", well how do you do it

and when do you do it? A lot of times we get this meeting preparation the night

before or a day before, and that's just not enough time particularly when

someone is on the agenda, in order to prepare what they need to do the meeting.

So think about what is it that you need, now that you're being purposeful with

your meetings, prep things accordingly, think of your pre read, if you're doing

more brainstorming resolutions stuff, that stuff you will need and you will

have to give it to the participants, so you have to think about that timing, and

that's really critical, and by the way if you're looking for agendas, which are

really important for a min meeting perspective, then you can go to my

website below, saying actually it's CornerStone Dynamics not MyVisual

Vision, I gotta remember which one it was, at CornerStone Dynamics, and you can get

a free agenda template. This video by the way has tons of downloads, so I want you

to really contemplate going afterwards to the show-me section and checking out

all those downloads that I'm going to have for you. Tip number three is prepare

your meeting kit. Now that you're purposeful with your meetings, you're

gonna have to have some things with you all the time, so when I do my

brainstorming and resolution and risk management meetings, I have my sticky

notes, my sharpies, my stickers for voting, my white paper, there's tons of things

that I have and I actually have a temporary container with all that stuff

in it. So now that you know your meetings are of a purpose, then you need a good

meeting kit to ensure that you have those things at your fingertips because

the last thing you want to do is kill your flow of your meeting and having to

walk it to grab something. You just lost precious time and you're

going to take a lot more energy and effort getting people up to that flow

that you were originally at before you left. So that's really important, is grab

a meeting kit. Now that we've done a preparatory work I want you to think

about the meeting itself. So tip number four that is, arrive early to set up

your meeting. If you're a meeting facilitator or the organizer, please come

early to ensure that you have everything there, as well as that you're set up for

any of those conference calls with screen-sharing, cause I don't know how many

times I've been in meetings where there's been "technical issues", the

meeting was supposed to start at nine o'clock sharp, and we really didn't get

the ball rolling to 9:15 because we were dealing with "technical difficulties". So

the biggest tip from a meeting itself, is come and early, get everything set up, so

when everyone walks in, you can just get going and start being effective and

efficient. Tip number five, when you're in your meetings, is use specific tools to

help ensure that your participants understand what is expected of them.

Now there's three tools that I love using all the time, the first one are

meeting rules. I'm a big proponent of meeting rules and I highly recommend it,

in fact that's another download I have, is a free poster that you can download

off my website CornerStoneDynamic.com and those I recommend you have in every

single meeting room, and the first thing you do, is when your participants come in,

is "hey let's review the rules" and you go through all the rules. The second tool

that I use all the time with my participants is I then talk about time

outs. Like a referee, in a game, you have to call a timeout when a play is not

done well. Now in a scenario for a meeting, it's "hey I'm running at a time"

or "you didn't follow one of the session rules" so you call a time out. Now for

this to work well, you have to actually ask permission from people at the

beginning of the meeting, so when you walk in your meeting, not only do you

review the rules, you go "do I have your permission to time you out so I can keep

things on track" and you'll be amazed, everyone always says ye,s because guess

what, everyone has the same purpose, they want to have a good meeting. And the last

tool that I use, that goes in conjunction with the timeout, is a parking lot. So if

someone is passionate about something and time is a-tickin,

because I'm looking at the clock, then you need to actually put their idea

somewhere, because if you just cut the conversation right there and then, you

lost them, their innovation and their ideas is not going to be on the table,

because they're gonna feel very hurt that, "wait a minute that was really

important to me, you just cut my conversation" so you put it on a parking

lot. Now please just don't put on the parking lot and then throw away the

paper. Put it on the parking lot and do something with it. Uou want to either

make it an agenda item or speak to the person afterwards to get the

information that they need. So that, three tips, three tips, is what's going to help

you to manage your participants in your meeting. Tip number six, this one is

something I find most organizations don't do, which really results into why

when you have a meeting, people walk away and you're really not too sure where

statuses on stuff, and that is at the end of your meeting, the last 5-10 minutes,

summarize all the agreed-upon action items. So many people don't do this, they

actually just hope that everyone took their notes and then no one is following

up, and then you wonder why perhaps tasks didn't get done according to plan. So

ensure at the end of the meeting, go through your tasks "okay let's review

what we all agreed upon" and put responsibility and due dates associated

with those tasks lists, that's a fantastic way to keep effective and

efficient. And the last part that I want you to consider, is the post meeting

ritual that you now have to look at. And that is, everything you've collected I

would like for you to send it within 24 hours max, ideally two to three hours."

What? "Adrian you know what's cleaning up I have to do". Hold it! You're going to

be effective and efficient, you're gonna be starting to do things differently,

you're gonna have templates that you're going to use, you're going to be

collecting information in the meeting, so that when you're doing your review, you

should have everything you need in a nice template. And so, all you got to do

is clean it up, and then send it out, so yes you can send things out two to three

hours after meeting. Highly recommend it. It's fresh in people's mind and it

ensures that they stay on track with what it is that they have agreed to do.

So let's recap. In order to run effective and efficient meetings, you need to do

the three big buck. There's the preparatory work, there's a

meeting itself, and the post work. I think one of the biggest takeaways is really

think about what type and meaning you're having. If you're having update meetings,

ban them. I know it's going to be a new way of working for you because you're so

used to just collecting people and asking them, so you can check things off

your list. But in actuality, you're doing, and you're perpetuating a problem that

we have in our organizations, and that is: meetings are wasting time! So on that

note, if you want more information on meetings, I have lots of resources in the

show-more section underneath this video. Please check it out. I also have a pocket

book which is called Good Meetings = Great Results. I promise you

there's a lot more information in there too, because you also have to

consideration team dynamics, facilitation techniques, perhaps those would be more

videos down the road. Let me know. On that note, if you can give me a two thumbs up,

subscribe to the video, as well as share this with your colleagues, because the

more people that know how to run effective and efficient meetings the,

better off our corporate world will be. Thank you so much and I'll see you at

the next video, bye!