You are the manager of an electronics manufacturing major and you need to conduct a sales review meeting. You are looking for ways to conduct the meeting smoothly, accurately and in optimal time. Even after pondering for hours, you are unsure on how to proceed. Meetings conducted in professional English tend to be more productive. So read on to find 10 tips for an effective meeting in fluent English.
Top 10 Tips for an effective meeting
1. Identify needs
The primary reason for a meeting failure is often they are conducted for unnecessary reasons. Hence, it is very important to identify whether the meeting is really required. You can ask yourself or the colleagues these questions.
Example:
"Do you guys think we should conduct a meeting to organize our sales structure?"
2. Identify Objectives
Every meeting conducted should have an objective. The objective will help you to identify team goals. If you want to conduct a sales review meeting, then the objective would be to maximize the sales revenue. The objective can be easily identified through mutual discussion amongst your colleagues.
Example:
"What will we achieve by this team meeting?"
"What is the purpose of conducting this team meeting?"
3. Stay on topic
Many a times, people tend to go off track in meetings, which leads to a total waste of time. Hence, it is very important to stay on track in a meeting. Redirect the conversation if you feel the talk is missing the point. Use the following dialogues:
Example:
"I think the discussion is going off track. Let's come back on the topic."
"Please focus on the main points."
4. Include everyone
In a meeting, everyone should contribute their views and points. Sometimes, you need to encourage people to speak their minds. When everyone contributes, it leads to a well-rounded discussion that could be very meaningful. You can say:
Example:
"Ramesh, what are your thoughts on this?"
5. Make it humorous
A serious discussion is very boring. By bringing in humor, the situation lights up and people relax. This does not mean that you have to turn it into a comedy central show, but a few light moments won't hurt.
6. Plan ahead
A meeting is a good opportunity to plan the next steps. In case of a sales review meeting, you can always decide what steps or campaigns need to be undertaken to ensure the sales flow remain stable. Meetings help you to identify the future path to success.
Example:
"What are the steps we should take to ensure more stores accept our product?"
7. Take notes
In any meeting, taking notes is very important. No matter how sharp your memory is, important details are bound to skip during hours-long meetings. Notes help you keep track of things and important points.
8. Review
Meetings often need to be reviewed. The action items decided in the previous meeting should be analyzed and reviewed at the next meeting. This helps in a flow of ideas and steps.
9. Improve
Always think about how your meetings can be improved. You can always experiment and bring in new features in your meetings.
10. Infrastructure
Before conducting a meeting, ensure that the IT systems and software are running properly to avoid any technical glitches and delays.
For effective team meetings, improve your spoken English with the help of an online English guide. Be an able meeting facilitator.
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- By Monika Agarwal
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