7 Reasons Why Meetings are Not Effective

7 Reasons Why Meetings are not Effective – Resolution of a crisis, strategy, election of directors… A meeting accompanies every critical decision.

And it is not for less, since decision-making is a vital process through which one option is chose among several when facing a problem and solving it. This process goes through the analysis of the situation, analysis of the alternatives, assessment of impact and effectiveness, the definition of criteria for decision making, selection of other options, implementation, evaluation of results, and preparation of a report.

When meetings are not effective, decision-making is in jeopardy. For this reason, we want to tell you about the leading causes that affect your arrangements. Join us and see if your company is experiencing any of these situations. Are you ready?

What are Effective Meetings?

We understand effective meetings as an instrument of teamwork in which different people come together to discuss an issue through direct communication. The problem is that these meetings are not always effective, either because the company does not have an optimal space to organize them, because communication fails, because the participants are in different geographical areas and cannot access them, or because of the lack of clarity in the defined objectives or for other reasons.

In either case, organizations need to maximize performance and improve productivity. And for this, they also need to learn how to manage meetings effectively, especially those with high positions with high costs. Efficiency and good governance require hard coordination work.

There are no excuses for bringing participants together to make decisions.

Types of Business Decisions

Did you know that an effective meeting allows you to optimize time and increase the productivity and responsibility of teams?

Many reasons can lead companies to organize a decision-making meeting, but we have compiled them for you to have at hand:

• Strategic Decisions

  . They are the ones that focus on the future of the company since they are taken to obtain results in the medium and long term.

• Management Decisions

  . They elect the directors or managers of the company.

• Operational decisions. They are related to the daily management of the business and the objectives to be achieved in the short term.
• Program Decisions. They are those that are usually taken based on a procedure that already defines.

• Risk Decisions

  . They are only accepted in the face of a crisis or any other type of critical context.

• Individual Decisions.

  Any employee takes them in their day-to-day, and they are fundamental.

While it’s true that meetings failure can vary from company to company, there are generally a few common causes.

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7 Causes of an Ineffective Meeting

If we review the last meetings you attend, we can conclude that they could be improve in many ways. Every minute counts in the results of your company. That’s why it’s crucial to understand why you’re not running effective meetings:

• Lack of clarity in objectives.
• Little planning of the panels and the topics to be discuss in them.
• Ignorance of the role of each participant.
• Lack of consistency in the supporting data present.
• Excessive duration of the meeting.
• Absence of the main focus.
• Poor prioritization of issues to be address.

Now, what do you need to hold meetings effectively? Although more and more technological solutions are being develop for this purpose, not all meet the exact needs. In general, there are a series of requirements that they should meet and that we present below:

Automatic Prioritization of Issues.

This makes the day’s orders known since each case has a priority.

Registration of matters only by people who are authorize to do so (promoters). This avoids prior filtering to check whether it is a priority issue or not, as well as saving time.

Automatic generation of the agendas according to the priorities or the level of the antiquity of the issues that are pending resolution.

Send and Receive Notifications.

This is possible by sending emails to each of the participants.

Performance guarantee based on role. Many profiles can participate in the meetings, from promoters and secretaries to decision makers or advisors.

They are holding meetings remotely. It is very beneficial, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic and between participants with different geographical locations and schedules.

Automation and management of records. If the meeting is physical, the signature can always be made on a printout of the act. If they are not in person, it will be sent to each decision maker so they can quickly sign through the system.

Automatic feed of issues. Some clients may have bespoke products that ultimately end up in a decisive meeting.

Often, many companies spend excessive time in their meetings that are not reward. If this is your situation it is retro to stop, think and consider the change.