Mr. Muhamed Muneer

Many of you have wondered where all your time is disappearing. Especially when you have one too many meeting a day. It does not matter whether you are still in college completing your MBA or you are in corporate battlefield. If anyone believed that meetings are a prerogative of big businesses, think again.

But that's okay. If you need to take important decisions you need to involve key people of your firm of your group. So, meetings are supposed to be productive. But what is happening normally? Meeting groups often wander in and around agenda topics without making the decisions that need to be made in order for work to be effectively accomplished after the meeting.

Breakdowns occur when expectations are not shared, when people are not prepared to make decisions, and when leaders are not adept with decision-making processes. I have listed eight major steps here to prepare people in your company or in your group for making decisions in your meeting so that your meetings are more meaningful.

1. Have an agenda:- Many meetings start without an agenda. Even in multinational companies, I have seen such informal meetings wasting a lot of expensive time. To have a productive meeting, you must be ready with an agenda. In the agenda, state the meeting's overall purpose. For example, are you sharing information, or solving a problem? Agenda item by agenda item, identify whether a decision is needed. Try labelling each item as a discussion, decision, or dissemination of information item so that everyone understands what expectations exist for each.

2. Distribute the agenda:- Having an agenda readied just five minutes before the meeting will do no good to any one. You must have it distributed at least a couple of hours before if not 24 hours in advance. Send out the agenda along with any data or information that will be needed by participants in order to formulate a decision. Doing so saves meeting time and allows participants to mentally prepare for making decisions at the meeting. Once you do this, it is up to the participants to find time and energy to study the relevant information. But, I can tell you this much: they will all appreciate this small effort from your side.

3. Talk it out:- You may want to have some one-on-one conversations in the days before the meeting with the goal of uncovering participant issues and concerns, and to inform individuals that the meeting time will be used for decision making. Some people call it lobbying or canvassing. But this is a very productive step. Find out what additional information they will need so that they will be prepared to make decisions during the meeting. Your ultimate objective is to let the meeting take effective decisions, not necessarily yours.

4. Set expectations:- State which level of authority (from "you research and I'll decide" to "you research and carry out the plan, I don't need to know") the group will have in making and carrying out its decisions. This, as you can see, is very crucial. You must have seen on several occasions where decisions will be taken in a meeting but sufficient authority may not have been given to anyone to implement them. And, most times, this happens to peripheral issues, which may have an impact on your final product or service. But hardly anyone notices this.

5. Review the agenda:- Reiterate the decision-making purposes of the meeting. Overview the agenda items and re-emphasise those items on which a decision must be made. Post the agenda on a flip chart or on a white board. Posting the agenda confirm the tasks at hand for the leader and for participants, and it allows for the addition of time that may be needed for the meeting's decisions. This one is a very effective step in arresting digression.

6. Pick a process:- Identify the decision-making process that the group will use: vote, consensus, executive   decision, acceptance of a committee's recommendation, rank order, or a prioritised list. As the leader, understand how the decision process you choose works. Projects can quickly fall apart if the decision-making process has not been clearly stated to the members in the meeting or if the process stalls before the decision is reached.

7. In closing:- Before closing, summarise the decisions that were made, who will follow through on the next steps, and by when. Someone from the group could in fact write these down on the white board or flip chart so that it registers with everyone.

8. Follow up:- After all is done, do not forget it. Circulate the minutes of the meeting to all participants and all key executives who may be involved with the implementation of the decisions. Include in the meeting's minutes a list of what decisions were made, the resulting next steps, who will carry the steps out, and by when.

Just try out these eight simple steps next time you hold a meeting and see for yourself how effective it turns out to be. If you lay the groundwork for making meeting decisions, decisions are much more likely to be both made and acted on. That, I am sure all of us know, is no small task for a group or committee. Big benefits could be gained through such effective steps.

(By arrangement with Innovative Media)

Feedback and queries may be e-mailed to him directly at muneermuhamed@hotmail.com