You may recall that the purpose of the Meeting Essentials section is to provide a set of useful tools and techniques across a diverse range of topics, that can be used in many different meeting types and meeting formats to improve the meeting experiences of all participants.

Everything we do through Better Meetings by Design points towards fewer, shorter meetings, of better quality. If we elaborate on that statement, by fewer meetings we mean less in number, shorter in duration, and with fewer people taking part. For better quality we mean well-designed and more productive, with the right people in the right meeting roles, who have access to the appropriate technology. Meeting leaders need to be competent in selecting and applying the correct tools and techniques for their meetings, and they must be able to clearly articulate the purpose for meeting, along with its objectives and outcomes.

None of that changes in this section, and the desire for fewer, shorter and better meetings should be our aim. However, this is real life, and there will be times when you will have bigger meetings and, as a meeting leader, you have to be able to facilitate those occasions competently and confidently. So, while we remain true to the quest for fewer and better meetings, in this section we will address some of the challenges of larger groups, along with some suggestions for managing those meetings.

You’ll also find some interesting and, in some cases, eye-watering statistics from the Global Meetings Survey. Those statistics help to confirm why we need to focus on the essentials topics in this section.

We’ll address the topics in the order of the Meeting Essentials cards. Let’s get started.

How often have you had a meeting invite that has had little more in it than the date, time, and format, along with a title that may, or may not, provide a clue as to the meeting’s purpose?

94% of people will accept an invite whether, or not, the information provided is adequate. 70% of people regularly arrived unprepared for a meeting.

Oh, my goodness, how many times have you been in a meeting where the entire meeting time gets swallowed up with long and rambling introductions? The larger the meeting, the bigger the problem.

61% of people blame lengthy introductions for wasting meeting time. Use the Introductions card to take control and set the right tone from the outset.

Can you recall having been in a meeting that seemed to be made up of small groups of people who chose to sit together and appeared to be having their own meetings?

When you are in an in-person meeting these sidebar conversations are easy to spot. It’s the meeting leader’s job to stop these disruptive discussions, or better still to prevent them happening at all.

Mixing up where people sit helps with this. However, for the majority of people most meetings are now remote, and this creates a new sidebar conversation problem...the hidden sidebar discussion.

More than 80% of millennials say they engage in private conversations while participating in meetings, using collaboration platform chat features and messaging applications. Managing these invisible interactions is much harder, but equally important.

Quantifying the benefits of icebreakers in meetings can be challenging, as different icebreakers may have different effects depending on the group and context. You can use surveys, observations, and outcomes to help quantify the benefits of using icebreakers.

The qualitative aspects of icebreakers should also be considered, such as how they make the participants feel, think, or relate to each other. Icebreakers can have a positive impact on the mood, atmosphere, and culture of a meeting, which may not be easily captured by numbers alone.

Warning! Inappropriate icebreakers, or poorly executed icebreakers can negatively impact the participants and their contribution.

How can you engage with others, to generate ideas, to solve problems, and to learn from them, when you think you know everything already? Humility, in any form of leadership, is not a weakness, it’s a strength. In meetings, it shows that you are confident to work with the meeting participants to leverage their skills and expertise, provide a platform for their views and ideas, and that you value and respect their contributions.

Without doubt, humility is a leadership superpower. Be humble enough to ask the people that you invite to your meetings to provide feedback on your meeting design and leadership. Make this anonymous so that the feedback will be as honest as possible. Take the feedback seriously and keep an open mind. Ask for suggestions for areas of improvement and consider how you build these in to your meeting design development program.

Psychological safety and trust are both important concepts for understanding how people interact in group environments, such as in meetings. However, they aren’t interchangeable terms, nor are they equivalent.

Psychological safety refers to a shared belief that the meeting is a safe environment in which to take risks such as expressing an opinion, sharing ideas, asking questions, voicing concerns, or reaching out for help.

Trust refers to an individual participants belief that others in the meeting are genuinely acting with integrity and good intent.

Both safety and trust contribute to the well-being and performance of individual meeting participants, and the group as a whole. Therefore, it is important to understand and cultivate both psychological safety and trust in any meeting context.

While some digression may surface important points that should be captured as they will need to be addressed, not all ‘off topic’ discussions should be encouraged or recorded.

Meeting leaders need to be able to determine what is off topic but relevant and therefore needs to be recorded in the parking lot, versus what is irrelevant and therefore a distraction that may derail the meeting. 57% of people blame not staying on topic for wasting meeting time.

So, what are they dangers of straying off topic?

It wastes time and resources, negatively impacts decision making, lowers engagement and participation, creates confusion and frustration, introduces irrelevant and sometimes unsolvable issues, and causes conflict by allowing personal agendas or opinions to dominate.

And it can irreparably damage the meeting leader’s reputation.

Therefore, it’s really important for meetings leaders to be able to identify and park only the relevant and valuable off topic items, while preventing the discussion of anything that is irrelevant and distracting.

15 to 20% of the global population exhibit some form of neurodivergence. With half the world’s population, that’s in the region of 4 billion people, in the working age bracket of 15-64 (OECD data 2023), means that there are at least 600 million, that’s 15% of the working population who are neurodivergent.

With a better understanding of how to make meetings more accessible and inclusive for both neurodivergent and neurotypical participants, meeting leaders will improve meeting performance, productivity, and outcomes. This requires adaptability, often in the form of small changes, that have a positive impact for everyone.