How to Set Ground Rules that Guarantee Productive Meetings
How can you guarantee productive meetings?
Set and clear ground rules.
Before we dive into the ground rules, let’s cover three reasons your meetings suck:
1. Distraction
2. Disorder
3. Disinterest
Let’s explore each one.
1. Distraction:
You’re leading a meeting.
You have a critical issue to discuss.
You are prepared and pumped.
Your meeting attendees are not in the same space.
They have project issues; bid deadlines; conflicts with a project partner or customer.
They rush into the meeting, sit down, and immediately start replying to texts and responding to emails.
They have one ear on the meeting topic, but both eyes and all of their mind on everything but the issue that you want to address.
It’s disrespectful but inevitable…
2. Disorder
Conflict is inevitable in problem-solving meetings.
People have different perspectives on how to handle issues.
You should encourage these disagreements.
The problem is that people struggle to disagree without being disagreeable.
Conflict frays tempers, damages team unity and creates disorder.
3. Disinterest
Have you ever invited someone to a meeting as a courtesy?
They didn’t have a strong contribution to make to solve the problem that you were addressing, but you were afraid that if they didn’t get invited, they’d be offended.
They show up, sit in the corner, and contribute nothing to the discussion.
Their lack of interest brings down the energy in the room and shows the other meeting participants that the issue you want to discuss can’t be that important.
All meeting attendees should know: You wouldn’t be in the meeting unless you had a contribution to make, so commit to full participation.
To summarize: Distraction, Disunity, and Disinterest damage the quality of your meetings.
That’s why you must establish and enforce three ground rules for each attendee:
➡️ GROUND RULE #1: No texting or emailing in the meeting.
➡️ GROUND RULE #2: No personal attacks on meeting participants.
➡️ GROUND RULE #3: Full participation
If you want to learn more about how to run effective meetings, click this link and download a FREE short report:
