{"id":19867,"date":"2021-07-08T11:00:18","date_gmt":"2021-07-08T10:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"\/gb\/en\/blog\/?p=19867"},"modified":"2021-08-18T15:58:16","modified_gmt":"2021-08-18T14:58:16","slug":"how-to-run-effective-meetings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/gb\/en\/blog\/how-to-run-effective-meetings\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Run Effective Meetings: Lessons From Tesla, Amazon and Google"},"content":{"rendered":"

This blog is the first part of RingCentral’s Make Meetings Matter<\/em> series. We offer up advice on how to make all meetings purposeful, engaging and effective.<\/p>\n

The elephant in the room when it comes to communications: While meetings can be critical to business operations and driving momentum, the large majority of meetings we experience are not. Why is that?\u00a0<\/span>If we are honest with ourselves, only a few people like in person or virtual meetings. Those are the people whose personalities sway towards wanting a high degree of collaboration in their projects or need a sense of consensus to move forward (more on consensus being bad for decision making later). <\/span><\/p>\n

Most team members would rather spend time working on delivering projects than sit in a meeting. This, coupled with the fact that most meetings are disorganised, mismanaged or end up being wasted time, has made them an unpopular part of our work-life routine.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For leaders, this makes it difficult to get team members on the same page and collaborating effectively. With the advent of remote working<\/a> and new technologies, many meetings take place virtually, which adds another level of complexity. Most team members who join\u00a0<\/span>virtual meetings<\/span>\u00a0are often multitasking or working on other things simultaneously.<\/span><\/p>\n

Understanding how to have effective virtual meetings is one of the most important skills to master in 2021. Yet, according to\u00a0<\/span>this study<\/span>, ineffective meetings waste an estimated $37 billion a year. Another study in the\u00a0<\/span>Journal of Organisational Behavior<\/span><\/a>\u00a0found that, while wasting time is typically unacceptable in all other aspects of business life, “in the case of meetings, wasted time seems to be an accepted norm.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We are making meetings sound bleak and useless, which in fact, they are not. According to Google’s former CEO, a well-run meeting is “the most efficient way to present data and opinions, to debate issues, and yes, to make decisions,” Eric Schmidt writes in the new book “<\/span>How Google Works<\/span><\/a>.”<\/span><\/p>\n

As\u00a0<\/span>cloud collaboration experts<\/span><\/a>, we’ve spent some time researching how to run efficient, impactful and outcome-driven meetings. Here’s a collection of our industry best practices for running meetings:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Seek to run fewer meetings<\/h2>\n

This one sounds counterintuitive, but less does equal more here. As businesses get bigger and more complex, there’s a tendency to rely on meetings to increase communication and transparency. But in our opinion, you should avoid calling a meeting 75% of the time.<\/span><\/p>\n

So when you are thinking of calling a meeting, question whether or not you and the people you plan to involve can do without it. And as an invitee, you should feel empowered to push back if you don’t think it’s a good use of your time. Take command of your time and excuse yourself from a meeting if it’s not useful. Go ahead \u2013 decline that invite or ask how you will contribute to this discussion\/outcome they are seeking.<\/span><\/p>\n

For the 25% of the time where a meeting is necessary, make sure every participant is getting the most out of it. More on this later.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n