I lead a lot of meetings. And, you probably do too.
If you’re like me, you often find it challenging to keep everyone in a meeting focused on what you’re trying to accomplish.
I’ve found creating structure for the meeting with a simple document helps me lead meetings that participants often appreciate and usually find valuable.
And, I’d like to help you do the same.
In this post, I’ll do two things to help you learn to use structure to effectively lead meetings with your team, too.
1. Give you a 7 step process to use structure to lead an effective meeting
2. Explain why structure makes a meeting more effective
We’ll start with the simple, seven step process.
7 steps to use structure to lead an effective meeting
I’ve broken the process I’ve used to lead meetings throughout my career into these seven steps.
1. Plan ahead
2. Create a document to guide the meeting
3. Identify the topics
4. Budget the time
5. Select the participants
6. Optimize the meeting structure
7. Share the meeting document
I’ve used these seven simple steps to lead thousands of meetings and I’ve found the process to be helpful for me and for those who participated in the meetings I led. I hope you find them useful as well.
First, let’s talk about the initial step in preparing to lead an effective meeting, planning ahead.
1. Plan ahead
While the rest of these steps to lead an effective meeting may be done in a different order, this one must come first. If you want to successfully lead an effective meeting, you must plan ahead.
Unprepared leaders lead painful, ineffective meetings
We’ve all experienced the agony of sitting through a meeting led by someone who is not prepared. When the meeting starts, it quickly becomes obvious the person who brought everyone together doesn’t have a plan.
The conversation drifts all over the place. With the discussion jumping from topic to topic, it’s hard to know when to say something or what to say to add value.
Finally, after what seems like an eternity, the end time of the meeting arrives. But, no one is sure if you’re actually done. Because it wasn’t clear why you were even there in the first place.
Who cares? You’ve got an excuse to leave and you can finally escape. Blessed relief from the pain has arrived.
Am I exaggerating? Not much.
Unplanned, unstructured meetings occur countless times a day in organizations around the world. And, the person leading a meeting like this takes a hit to his or her reputation.
An unprepared leader is to blame
When we’re in a meeting led by an unprepared leader, we easily recognize why the meeting is ineffective. Typically no one says anything, but everyone knows who is responsible.
The unprepared leader is the one to blame. The person who asked everyone to come together for a meeting is responsible.
Scheduling a meeting and not being prepared to lead it effectively is a proven way to quickly lose the respect of your teammates.
Leaders who have not invested time getting ready prior to bringing a team together waste everyone’s time. And, we all know time is a precious resource in every organization.
But, good leaders think differently.
Good leaders view themselves as stewards of their teammates’ time
Throughout my career, I encouraged my teams to have the mindset of a steward when scheduling and leading meetings.
If you’re not familiar with the term, a steward is a person who is entrusted with the responsibility (and privilege) of managing another person’s resources.
This was our perspective.
If we schedule a meeting, we are responsible for planning and leading it to maximize the use of each participant’s time. It is up to each of us, when leading meetings, to ensure that every minute of the meeting is a valuable investment of time for each person there.
I encourage you to take this same approach.
Invest the time to prepare for every meeting
To earn and keep the respect of your teammates, I encourage you to schedule time on your calendar to prepare for every meeting you convene.
It doesn’t have to be a lot of time. Especially once you get the hang of the process I’m going to lay out in these next six steps.
The investment you make prior to the meeting will bring a great return by using your team’s time efficiently and boosting their morale.
So, that wraps up the first, and perhaps the most important, step of this process, planning ahead to prepare for the meeting.
Now let’s move to the second step of the process, creating a document to guide the meeting.
2. Create a document to guide the meeting
Creating a document to use as a guide when you lead a meeting is beneficial and important for three reasons.
1. Clarifies your purpose
Collecting and processing your thoughts causes you to get clear about your purpose for calling a meeting. It may seem like you need to pull the team together. But, what do you hope to accomplish? Who needs to be there and who doesn’t?
Creating a document to guide the meeting will help you answer these important questions.
2. Equips others to lead
When you create document to use when you lead a meeting, you are equipping others to step into your position as meeting leader. This may be in the future for the person you’re mentoring. Or, it may be immediate when a unplanned crisis forces you to find a substitute.
Giving your mentee or your stand-in a clear path to follow in leading a meeting on your behalf, positions them for success.
3. Makes taking and distributing meeting notes simple
Documenting the actions taken and decisions made during a meeting is an important part of leading an effective meeting. I write more about this in my post, How To Unlock The Power To Lead In A Role You Probably Don’t Like.
A meeting guide prepared before the meeting will save you (or the meeting scribe) time both during and after the meeting as you take and distribute notes for your team.
What format should I use for the document?
The format you use for the meeting guide document is really up to you. You may like spreadsheets. Or, a word processing tool may be your preference. Any format other than “in my head” can be used. You can even use pen and paper if you like.
The key is to collect and capture your thoughts in a document before the meeting begins.
I love using Microsoft OneNote to document meetings. I’ll be using a OneNote document as an example.
Microsoft OneNote example
To guide our discussion I created this simple meeting guide document in OneNote.
I know it’s hard to read, but don’t worry. I’ll zoom in and highlight specific sections as we discuss them. And, the next section is part of step 3 of our process for using structure to lead an effective meeting.
We’ve got our meeting document ready so let’s use it to capture the meeting topics.
3. Identify the topics
You can see in this example meeting, there are three topics to be covered.
It may seem simplistic and obvious for me to suggest the person leading a meeting needs to state the topics to be covered.
However, in my experience, many leaders are not sure themselves of what needs to be discussed in a meeting until they invest the time to plan and prepare.
This is certainly true for me.
Once you’ve done the work to identify the topics, you can use the meeting guide document to capture and clearly communicate these topics to the meeting participants.
Communicating the topics should be done with two separate and distinct components, a topic label and a topic description.
Label and describe the topics
1. Keep the topic descriptions short, clear, and simple.
Get specific as you consider the work the team needs to do during this meeting. Avoid broad, vague terms that foster unproductive discussions. Describe the topic in short, easy to remember words. These words are the name or label for topic.
The topic labels will help your teammates remember what was discussed during the meeting.
2. Label the topic in the header.
Put each label you create for each topic in the header of a section. And, use a number with the label. These headers and labels serve as a road map for you and the meeting participants. During the meeting, everyone will know at any point where they are on this meeting journey.
Topic labels in numbered headers are a powerful tool to keep the conversation focused on one topic at a time and cleanly transition between topics.
3. Describe the topic in the body.
Create a sub-section to briefly describe each topic. Including this short explanation of the topic will remind the meeting participants of the background. This will trigger their minds to be more quickly prepared for the discussion. And, it will help any new team members catch up with the others.
Create visual separation between the topics
Use numbers and visual elements such as highlighting and horizontal lines to create separation between the topics.
This technique amplifies the power of using the distinct, separated topics to manage the discussions as you lead the meeting.
Add details for each topic
You’ve labeled the topic and described it briefly. Now add the details that are important for this particular meeting.
Include action items and decisions and format the text to ensure they stand out from other meeting notes.
Include space for notes
As I noted earlier and in a previous post, taking notes during a meeting is important. In this meeting guide, create a section for this purpose.
Follow a template
There are many ways to implement these techniques and I recommend you use the methods that work best for you.
Once you settle on a format you like, create a template and use it for efficiency and consistency.
Here’s an example of a template I use regularly. You can see how it brings together the various techniques I described.
Now that you’re clear on the topics and communicated them clearly in your meeting document, you can move to the next step of the process.
Let’s talk about an agenda for the meeting.
4. Budget the time
Every effective meeting needs some sort of agenda. And, an agenda includes at least two things. Topics and time.
By getting clear on the topics including what points need to be discussed, you’ve made the task of creating an agenda much easier.
Review the topics and key points you want to cover and budget out the time you have available. Topics with many items will need more time. Others can be covered quickly. You may also need to lengthen or shorten the duration of the meeting accordingly.
Be disciplined and intentional when budgeting the meeting time.
Don’t make it too long just to fit a calendar suggestion of an hour, for instance. If you have 35 minutes worth of work to do, schedule the meeting to be 35 minutes long.
But, if you find you have too much material to cover in a reasonable amount of time, consider scheduling multiple meetings.
Be sure to leave time at the end of the meeting to review action items and owners. This blog post, Ask “Who Needs to Do What by When?” Drive Results! gives you tips on how to do this.
You now have topics for the meeting and an agenda, you are well prepared to lead the meeting. There are just a few more steps to take.
The next step is to decide who needs to be there.
5. Select the participants
You are now far more prepared than most meeting leaders to determine who needs to be in the meeting you are going to lead.
Many people who schedule meetings don’t think critically about who should attend.
With the meeting structure you’ve designed in your guide document, you can intentionally invite specific team members with clarity and purpose. And, you know how much of their time you are asking them to invest.
As you review your guide, consider who needs to be present to do the work you’ve outlined. Those are the people you should ask to attend. Keep the group at the right number of participants to effectively complete the purpose of the meeting in the time you have allocated.
The most effective meetings include only those who need to be there.
So, you’re done, right? Ready to send out a meeting invitation?
Not quite. There’s one more step.
6. Optimize the meeting structure
This step is one that will allow you to distinguish yourself as a servant leader in your organization. It’s not required, but it will definitely set you apart as a meeting leader.
If you’re made it this far and completed the five previous steps, you’ve done a lot of work to prepare for the meeting you are going to lead. In fact, you’ve already done far more than the majority of people who schedule and lead meetings.
But, I would encourage you to invest just a little more time for your own benefit and the benefit of those who will attend your meeting.
Here’s what I recommend.
Take a moment to visualize yourself leading the meeting you have designed. Walk through it in your mind. And, honestly consider how it’s really going to go once you and your teammates are in the room or online.
Ask yourself these five questions.
1. Can we really cover these topics in this amount of time?
If not, adjust the topics or the agenda. Or both.
2. Are these the right people to do this work?
Add or remove meeting participants even if it feels uncomfortable. Those who should be there and attend will thank you.
3. Will the meeting flow well with the order of topics?
Rearrange the topics to make the most of the meeting time.
4. Have I been clear in what I’ve captured in the meeting document?
Invest a little more time on your own before the meeting to avoid confusion and frustration during the meeting. This will reduce your stress level as you lead the meeting and prevent wasting everyone’s time.
5. Would I want to attend the meeting I’ve designed?
Imagine yourself not as the leader of the meeting but as the participant. Would you consider this a valuable investment of your time? Do you understand why you’re there? Can you see how you might contribute?
After answering these questions, you may be satisfied and ready to take the next step. Or, you may want to tweak your meeting document slightly.
If you want to make changes, repeat the previous steps until you’re confident to proceed.
Then, take the final step.
7. Share the meeting document
I realize I didn’t highlight an obvious step. As the meeting leader you need to schedule the meeting and invite participants to attend.
When you sent a meeting invitation, I encourage you to include the meeting document you created. This lets people know what to expect and prepare so they can engage and contribute.
Many leaders of meetings don’t take this step. Often it’s because they don’t prepare prior to the meeting. And, sometimes, it’s because the don’t want to relinquish control and be transparent with their plan for the meeting. Be aware of these common barriers and work to overcome them.
This is the seventh and final step to use structure to lead an effective meetings.
In the introduction, I promised to not only give you a process to follow. I also told you I would explain why structure makes a meeting more effective. So, let’s move to that topic now.
Why structure makes a meeting more effective
As I’ve explained, I have used this structure I’ve described and the meeting guide document to lead thousands of meetings. So, I know it works.
In addition, I have learned recently from two leadership experts some of the reasons why structure is so effective when used to lead meetings.
The first expert is someone I quote often in my posts.
A structured meeting shows your teammates the future
In a previous post, “Are You Above Or Below The Line? How To Know And What To Do About It.” I shared wisdom from Michael Bungay Stanier’s book, “The Advice Trap: Be Humble, Stay Curious, & Change the Way You Lead Forever.”
I shared his TERA technique to create a more psychologically safe space for our teams and keep them engaged.
Meeting structure is a direct application of the E in TERA. The E stands for Expectation as Stanier’s explains in his book.
Expectation: “Do I know what’s about to happen, or not?”
Show them the future. Calm your teammate’s brain by letting it know what is about to happen. Remove mystery by explaining what you’re going to be doing. Show them the process. Create mini-milestones to illuminate the path forward even in a normal conversation or meeting.
The meeting structure you create and capture in a document shows your teammates what to expect. This calms their brains by showing them the future.
And, by sharing the meeting guide with them before the meeting, they can not only prepare for the upcoming session, but they will also feel more psychological safe as they anticipate joining together as a team.
Additionally, using the same document during the meeting provides familiarity and consistency which brings further reassurance.
These steps help your teammates engage more deeply and be more creativity.
Structure helps your teammates thrive by providing them with security. And, it does more than that. It helps them understand you better.
A structured meeting helps you make sense to others
When you’re leading a meeting, you definitely want to communicate clearly. You want the people in the meeting to understand what you’re saying.
In other words, you want to make sense to others. That’s the term Tom Henschel of Essential Communications used in a recent podcast episode.
Tom is a veteran executive leadership coach who grooms senior leaders and executive teams. He is an internationally recognized expert in the field of workplace communications. He knows what he’s talking about.
Tom had a conversation with Dave Stachowiak on Dave’s Coaching for Leaders podcast (which I highly recommend). They discussed the common challenge of making sense to others when communicating, including when leading meetings.
Tom explained why using structure when communicating helps both the sender, you in this case as the meeting leader. And, the receiver, those attending your meeting. And, he gives interesting insight into the benefit of clear, precise transitions.
The lessons in this episode are applicable when creating structure for your meetings and for every type of communication. You can access the episode by clicking the image below.
This podcast encouraged me to continue to use structure when leading meetings and incorporate it into other forms of communication as well. I hope it does the same for you.
That completes this section on why structure makes a meeting more effective. So, let’s summarize what we’ve covered in this post.
It’s time to put structure into action as you lead meetings
You’ve now got a seven step process to use structure to lead an effective meeting. And, you know why this structure makes a meeting more effective.
Are you ready to apply these lessons to the next meeting you lead? I encourage you to give it a try.
I’m confident the people who attend the next meeting you lead will recognize and appreciate the benefit of the structure you introduce.
Let’s lead with kindness and confidence.
Greg
Discussion Questions
- How do you introduce structure into the meetings you lead?
- Which of the seven steps listed above do you find most valuable?
I’m curious to learn more about how you prepare for and lead meetings. Please share your tips and tricks and teach me and others what you know.
