Meetings are not useful unless they lead to an outcome or clearly defined tasks needed to reach an outcome. If you want influence over the outcome, it’s always best to lead.
What I’ve found that works best to lead a meeting:
Before the meeting
- Send the agenda a day before the meeting. Break down the sections strategically so that you can cover the most important details as a group or give you the best chance to steer the conversation to the outcome you believe is best.
- Send a pre-read that already answers the question you are there to discuss.
During the meeting
- Before anyone joins, put a slide on the screen with the agenda. Sometimes you want to include key points you want someone to take away from the discussion.
- Wait for people to join up to 3 minutes after start time, ask if the group is waiting on anyone who must attend 2 minutes after start time.
- Assign a note taker or record the meeting and let people know you will send it afterwards.
- Short intros. Ask team leads to introduce their team. Use the phrase, “Tweet length intro”.
- Go through each the agenda one by one, be clear about what the topic is, if the group veers, politely say “we’re getting off topic, I’ll make a note to follow up about this later, is that okay?”. No one will say no unless it’s suddenly very important.
- With 5-10 minutes remaining (more the longer the meeting), summarize action items that arrise and assign exactly one owner by name, ideally with a date. Write it down so there can be an agreement. Schedule follow-up call on calendar.
- Send a follow-up meeting summarizing the outcome and action items.