7 Common Mistakes To Avoid During The Team Meetings

Many businesses and their professionals fear their workday when they see their work calendar loaded with meetings. The main reason people don’t prefer it is because they achieve very less and waste all the practical waste of time. 

No doubt the team members relish the effective meetings that execute goals and drive results. Check out the mistakes that need to be avoided to run the meetings! 

Mistakes To Avoid For Meeting 

• Talking for More Than Half Time

• Don’t talk more than 50% of the minutes of meeting or make it all about you
• Encourage everyone to speak up, even if they’re shy or reserved by nature
• Do listen actively and ask open-ended questions to keep the conversation going. Make sure it is a conversation rather than a monologue from the boss

• Make A Point Of Never Using Slides

• Avoid using slides
• Slides can be used to record notes and to divide a meeting into sections
• Slides can help you keep track of conversations and ask appropriate questions at the right time
• Organize an agenda, write down notes from each section, and identify action items that need further work or follow-up

• Invite Irrelevant People To Your Meeting 

Inviting people who don’t belong to your team is a surefire way to make your meetings counterproductive and frustrating. Think about it. They may interrupt the meeting with questions you will have to answer if they are present or they may not understand the purpose of the meeting at all. It is very possible that they don’t have the necessary background to participate in the conversation. Or maybe they just don’t have time for these meetings. Maybe they even don’t have a stake in the outcome of the meetings. Involving only those whose work impacts your team will save everyone time and will make sure everyone at your meetings is on the same page about what matters most to you.

• Giving The Agenda At The Start

Make sure that you have a clear agenda for the meeting before the team sits down. It is also a good idea to send out the agenda in advance so that everyone is familiar with it before the meeting starts. Provide your attendees with an agenda at the beginning of the meeting and be sure to stick to it as much as possible. This will help keep everyone on track and prevent meetings from running long because participants are unable to stay on topic.

• Lack Of Laptop Or Mobile Phone

If you are presenting to a group, ask them to come without their laptop or mobile phone. This is the number one mistake made when it comes to running a meeting. You can’t have people multitasking during your presentation. You need to have their full attention. Without it, you won’t get the kind of feedback you need and deserve from your team members. Don’t worry about people taking notes. You can share the meeting minutes afterwards.

• Never Take Notes At Meeting

• If you’re the leader in charge of the meeting, don’t write notes yourself
• If you DO find yourself taking Staff Meeting notes for some reason, share them with everyone who was present or not present but could have been
• If you’re a team member, do NOT take detailed notes about what your boss says in meetings unless he asks you to do so
• What should be documented and shared? The agenda items, discussion points, and action items from the meeting were discussed and assigned to specific people

• Not Recording Or Sharing Minutes 

During the team meeting, it is essential to take down notes. The best way to do this is by creating a shared document that allows all members of your team to add their thoughts and ideas. Once the meeting is over, you can share the notes with your colleagues through email or an internal messaging system. This will help you figure out gaps in your business strategy and allow your colleagues to provide feedback on what they think are some key points of the meeting. You can then use these notes as a guide for the next. 

Final Words 

Being an organizer, it becomes your responsibility to make your team meetings more effective. Many companies use technology and different team chat apps to help them in having the most effective meetings. They also believe in sharing new ideas whether it is about remote meetings, one on one meeting, or both. By using the proper tools and procedures, the company’s team can make, communicate and follow the progress toward achieving the dreams in real-time without waiting for long or futile meetings. The new technology will help the team members unite efficiently in real-time, cultivate a transparent work environment and make people achieve their goals.