For better meetings, get your briefs on.

Great meetings don’t happen by accident. And since the pandemic hit, we’ve been sitting in a lot of them. Whether you are taking your meetings in an office, at your kitchen table, or somewhere in between — there are several cornerstones to highly productive meeting time:

• The right preparation
• The right people
• The right content
• Could this have been an email? — the average professional spent how many hours in meetings each week during the fall of 2021? (answer below)

One of our customers told me the other day that the reason they value Turbine Labs is because our output provides “concise depth” on the topics they care about. Better outcomes and decision-making comes from better information. Here’s how to channel this concise depth into each of your meetings:

• Get your briefs on — We’ve helped international teams ensure their executives are running their meetings with unified and comprehensive information. Providing all participants with a concise topical overview prior to meeting is critical to keeping everyone aligned and on track before you click the “Launch Zoom” button.
• Get your nerd on — Only include participants who genuinely care about the topic or care about supporting those who care about the topic. People who don’t care will be doing the multi-screen attention shuffle, and truthfully, their time would be more productive elsewhere.
• Get your watch on — One person needs to act as the timekeeper. Our daily agendas are overloaded with meetings, follow-up tasks and emails that warrant responses. Timeliness is key to ensuring your day and meeting stay on track.
• Get your sweats on (optional) — this one is up to you. If you’ve been remote for 23 months, it might be tempting to leave the house with shorts, tights, or less. Just remember that in an in-person meeting, people will be able to see below your shoulder line again.

Whether in-person, on Zoom, hybrid, or VR (we’re looking at you, Metaverse), too many meetings could have just been an email. Source: Marketoonist

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