Effective Business Meetings: A Practical Guide

Meetings are among the most expensive forms of communication in today's business environment, so it's essential to make the investment worthwhile. No matter their format, effective meetings efficiently meet their objectives and encourage an atmosphere of open participation that's characterized by fairness and order.Effective meetings begin with careful preparation. This course outlines a five-step process for preparing for effective meetings. First, you'll learn how to clarify the purpose and objectives of a meeting. Second, you'll learn how to determine if the meeting is required, or if a meeting alternative can fulfill the objectives. Third, you'll learn how to choose the best participants. Fourth, you'll learn how to create the agenda. And fifth, you'll learn how to prepare yourself and your participants for a successful meeting.The next time you need to prepare a meeting, the methods introduced in this course will help you make the most of you and your participants' valuable time. By making your meetings as effective as possible, you'll work to conserve company resources, establish a reputation as considerate and efficient, and attract greater contributions from your attendees.So why does one meeting succeed and another one fail? The reason could be that some meeting leaders are unsure of their responsibilities at each stage of a business meeting. Perhaps the meeting leader's opening comments set the wrong tone, or maybe the discussion lost focus and was allowed to drift.There are different types of meetings, but most follow a similar trajectory. Whether it's a regular meeting or a task force meeting, the meeting leader should open the meeting with appropriate information and in the right tone. An effective meeting leader encourages full participation from the group to ensure the objectives are reached within the allotted time. To close the meeting, the leader summarizes the decisions arrived at and follows up on the actions that need to be taken.This course covers the skills and lessons that will help you to fulfill the key responsibilities of a meeting leader at each stage of a business meeting. You will learn about opening a meeting properly and closing it in the correct way. The course also demonstrates how to facilitate good decision-making during a meeting, as well as how to manage time in a meeting.How you feel about meetings will likely depend on your own experience - whether meetings you've attended were effective and efficient, or whether they were unfocused and out of control. But good meetings don't just happen. It takes a conscientious and ongoing effort to make meetings productive, worthwhile, and satisfying.As a meeting leader, understanding the characteristics of effective business meetings will help you take positive, collaborative steps to address issues and make your own meetings more efficient, productive, timely, and enjoyable.This course deals with appropriate ways to address common problems of business meetings. You'll learn about the value of conducting effective meetings and about practices to evaluate effectiveness. You'll discover how to intervene appropriately to address problems that occur during meetings, including issues of decorum and productivity problems. And you'll learn about how to handle the special challenges of virtual meetings.