Staff meetings. We know the drill. I think we’ve all had experience with good ones, and ones that are just plain awful.

In my experience, staff meetings have served a number of different purposes: updating others on the progress of projects, decision-making, feedback on work, getting insight from team members, problem-solving etc. The success of those meetings depended on the number of people who attended, how prepared individuals were when they went to the meeting, knowing the purpose of the meeting, and knowing the end goal of the meeting—not be confused with “what” the end goal is going to look like. For example, before you go into the meeting, you know that you want to come out with a solution to your most recent sales issues with a customer—you don’t know what that solution may be until the end of the meeting.

The following tips are from an HBR blog post about the most common mistakes that are made when trying to run a staff meeting. I’ve summarized them below:

1. There’s no clear objective. To avoid this, make sure the objective of the meeting is clear so that “participants […] know what to expect and how to prepare.”
2. There’s no focused agenda (despite having a clear meeting objective). This means that the agenda items are unclear (and not detailed enough). Speak to attendees beforehand to determine what exactly they want to discuss and how much time to allot to them.
3. Not everyone in the room has a chance to speak. Ask directs questions, give “the mic” to them to speak, let the interrupters know they’ll have their time to speak = more engagement from everyone.
4. Endless debates without a conclusion. This goes back to Mistake #2. If folks have an idea of what the agenda is beforehand, then they can come prepared with data to back potential arguments or provide useful feedback.
5. Not reaching a consensus on an action item. Before you leave the meeting (or soon after), identify what’s supposed to be done, who is supposed to do it, and when it’s supposed to be done by.
6. No remembering to give “kudos” to individuals. Towards the end of the meeting, make sure that you still recognize certain individuals or teams for their efforts. Help bring everyone’s efforts and hard work full circle—remind them of the overall goal.

Now I wanted to ask you…

1. What “mistakes” have you made in a meeting?
2. Based on your experience, what tips do you have on leading a successful meeting?
3. What do you do just before a meeting? Right after a meeting?