Be Ready to Chair Meetings! Best Practices on How to Conduct Meetings Effectively

Meetings are crucial and can be turning points for organisations. They can create and transform ideas into success stories and turn conflicts and issues into business growth opportunities. But productive meetings are not done by themselves nor by miracle. While they take preparation, hard work, patience, and creativity from the people in the meeting room, a key person can be instrumental in the meetings’ outcomes. Learning how to conduct a meeting effectively is crucial to a facilitator's role.

What are the roles of a facilitator or a meeting chair?

A meeting chair or facilitator is the point person who guides and sets the meeting in the most productive and harmonious direction. While not all meetings may require a chairperson or facilitator, there is always someone who steps into the role to set things in order. No matter the size of a meeting, having a meeting chair ensures efficient use of time, resources, and attendees' ideas and skills. Meeting chairs also have the following responsibilities throughout the meeting:

• Identify and reminds members of the meeting goals
• Steers the discussions on the right track
• Monitors progress
• Encourages participation from all members
• Assists in decision-making

What are the principles of facilitation?

Anyone can be a meeting chair. It is best if employees can take turns fulfilling the role since it is an excellent opportunity to display one’s knowledge and skills in business strategies and people and conflict management. 

So, if you are assigned to your meeting’s next chair, or you want to explore being one, here are qualities and skills that make an effective facilitator:

Well-organised

A meeting chair needs physical and mental organisation skills. You need to prioritise and sort meeting objectives and topics, analyse and evaluate information, prepare documents, effectively communicate with meeting attendees, and delegate tasks.

Focused and objective

A meeting chair should prioritise facts and other information that will significantly benefit the meeting. You must be impartial when managing conflicts and adverse reactions. But, also stay sympathetic and empathetic. A meeting chair understands people’s viewpoints but also sets aside personal feelings or biases, even their own, to ensure the discussions remain relevant.

Patient

Other chairperson tasks can be challenging if you cannot stay level-headed throughout the meeting. A facilitator handles conflict and difficult people most calmly and professionally. Reflective thinking, instead of hasty reactions, can be your edge. Being patient is a must during moments when it takes a long and tedious process to make decisions and reach an agreement. 

Openness

A chair creates an open and safe meeting environment where it considers everyone’s perspectives and respects people’s responses by giving them the room to expound on their thoughts. They do not abuse authority or let one or two people dominate the conversation. A chair puts a limit without restricting opportunities to gather significant inputs from others. They are also willing to let others experience the facilitator’s role in the next meeting. 

Strategic and creative

There can be many detours and reroutes in reaching the meeting's intended outcome. A meeting chair balances traditional methods and unconventional means to lead meetings. They consider the status quo of things but also anticipate possible future hurdles. Facilitators ask and reframe questions to motivate others to answer. They challenge thoughts, even their own if its means producing better solutions. Meeting chairs raise curiosity even about what seems like a simple idea. 

How to Conduct A Meeting Effectively

Having knowledge and values in meeting facilitation is fundamental, but applying them effectively can upgrade your skills and give you a better meeting experience. Here is a guide for you. 

Before the meeting

1. Identify the meeting background and purpose

Think about the need for the meeting. What do you hope to deliberate and accomplish? Set the expected outcomes. List the attendees and identify how they can contribute to the discussion. 

With the integration of in-person and online meetings, decide if you will meet in the office or through video conferencing. Each setup will require additional preparation and different chairing strategies.

2. Assign roles

Form a committee, especially for bigger meetings. If you only need a few members, ensure you have a timekeeper, secretary, or recorder for note-taking and documentation. Remember, you cannot do everything on your own. You will need people to help you effectively fulfil your chairing role.

3. Make the agenda

The agenda is the detailed line-up of what to cover in the meeting. An agenda should have the following:

• Meeting details, such as date and place or platform if online
• Main objectives or purpose
• List of specific topics and tasks to discuss
• Attachments or links to resources or supporting information
• Time allotment for each task 

Ask the other committee members and participants for approval or other suggestions for the agenda.

During the meeting

4. Introduce and discuss rules

Introduce yourself and the meeting committee. If you have speakers, provide their background. For smaller meetings, you may let participants give a short introduction to familiarise attendees with one another. Discuss meeting guidelines and etiquettes for clearer expectations of how the meeting should proceed. Consistently remind the rules when you see someone forgoing them. Here are some sample rules:

• Raise your hand if you wish to speak and wait for the signal. Use the chatbox for online meetings.
• Be polite and respectful when expressing your view.
• Avoid any unnecessary discussions. Focus on the agenda. 
• Be mindful of your time to speak.

5. Listen and observe

Be conscious of people’s behaviour and nonverbal cues during the meeting. If someone has an extreme reaction or looks like they want to say something, invite them at the right moment to share because it can be something valuable. It may be difficult during video conferences when their cameras are switched off, but their silence or lack of participation may help determine the best engagement strategy.

Project appropriate nonverbal cues while someone is speaking. After, verbally inform your understanding and confirm if you got their point correctly. For example, say: “So, the main concern is the deadlines, not the deliverables. If given more time, we can get everything done. Did I get that correctly?”

6. Take control 

Drive and manage balanced participation. If someone has been speaking too long or too often and starts to mention different topics, feel free to punctuate them firmly but politely. 

For example, say: “Thank you, I understand your point. We will cover the two items you mentioned later. Let us focus on one matter and ask others to share.”

Establish eye contact with others. Explore different angles of asking for responses and feedback. You can state the following:

• “Are there other concerns you wish to address?”
• “Did anyone else experience the same problem?” 
• “What more can you share about this?” 

Manage initial negative reactions from other participants when someone offers suggestions, as this can feel discouraging. Acknowledge people’s responses, but let others explain the rationale of their ideas.

For example, when someone shared, and another reacted, “But that execution has been done by Company B”, you can respond, “Yes, though maybe we can also get something new from exploring something familiar. What do you have in mind for your suggestion?” Look at the entire context before deciding if an idea has merit.

If many people raise their hands, create a line-up and let them know when their turn is. Remind people that they are only given a few minutes so you can accommodate others.

7. Keep things motivated

Sometimes, discussion feels frustrating because it is like a dead end. Remind everyone of their hard work, how far theyhave come, and that they are progressing well because of their contributions. Insert a healthy dose of humour and engage when members make jokes to make things feel lighter. Take mind breaks and discuss other interesting topics that might invigorate their motivation.

Do not be afraid to set aside some problems temporarily. Unless it affects another discussion, avoid getting stuck on one topic when you might be getting somewhere with other agenda items. Once things are picking up, you can come back to these issues later on when there are more options.

8. Summarise before moving forward

Keep an updated list of every question, suggestion, and concern. Before moving on to another topic, remind and confirm discussions, decisions, and required actions. If there are no clear decisions on an item, consolidate the shared inputs and present contrasting ones so everyone can choose. Ensure members are informed. Get their acknowledgement and agreement on their roles and tasks before moving on.

After the meeting

9. Discuss the next meeting

Set the schedule for when you will meet again and create an initial list of meeting topics. This is also the perfect opportunity to get a consensus on who should be the next meeting chair.

10. Ask for feedback

Talk to the meeting committee and attendees to ask what they think about the meeting and get suggestions for improvement. Distribute meeting evaluation forms for bigger meetings.

11. Check the minutes

You can shortly convene with the meeting committee to review the minutes and resources to send to attendees.

12. Create a guide

Since the meeting chair role can rotate, it is ideal to create a compilation of general meeting guidelines and best chairing practices to use as a reference. Every meeting chair can share their experience and offer suggestions for the next facilitators.

Summary

It takes thorough planning and consistent practice to master how to conduct a meeting effectively. But as you continue to adapt and hone your people skills, chairing meetings can offer significant career progression and fulfilment. Providing the essential guide to ensure productive exchanges between the great minds behind the companies’ success and being part of creating something new that can change the course of the business can make the task worth experiencing.

If you have what it takes to be a meeting chairman, ensure you update your JobStreet profile with relevant skills and experiences. Finally, read more Career Advice and let our Career Tools help you plan your career and check essential skills for your next role!