How to Make Meetings Meaningful

Ask yourself if this scenario seems familiar: You’ve just got out of an hour long meeting and everyone is feeling happy because it seemed to go well and everyone is finally on board with same vision of the project. Then, a week later, in the same meeting with the same people, you’re going over the previous agenda only to find out that no progress has been made on any of the issues discussed. The people who you thought were in charge, thought someone else was in charge and the good feelings of the last meeting have evaporated in a cloud of confusion and frustration.

So how do we go from unprofitable meetings, to meetings that actually contribute to progress? Here are a five steps that can take your meeting from frustration and miscommunication to transparency and shared vision even if you’re not leading the meeting.