Action Objectives for Successful Meetings

Despite their importance to your organizational communications, business meetings have a bad reputation.  Common complaints people have are that they run too long, they’re dull and boring, and they go off track.  They’re frequently dominated by just a few speakers and many people who could contribute never speak up.  Although the purpose is often to come to agreement, arguments often result and decisions don’t get made.  For the time, costs and human resources invested, meetings are just wasteful.

The saddest thing about this list of complaints is that they’re often true.  In fact, many studies have shown that more time is wasted in meetings than in any other business activity.  Business people spend up to 40% of their time in meetings that are only 50% efficient. 

One of the best ways to improve efficiency at your business meetings is to ensure that every meeting has a clear action objective.  In other words, if any one of the attendees were to ask, “Why are we having this meeting?”, your action objective would provide the answer.

Your action objective is the outcome your meeting should achieve in the amount of time allotted.  If you state your objective clearly in the e-mail announcements and in the agenda, all of the participants invited will know the purpose of the meeting before they arrive. 

Vague objectives lead to unproductive meetings, so avoid phrases such as, ‘…discuss the effectiveness of the new mobile tracking system” and “…talk about the need for training programs.” 

Instead, use specific action words so that your objective sounds more like a goal that you must achieve.  For example, “…to assign responsibilities for Phase 2 of the Alpha project”, or “…to brainstorm a list of questions for the new customer survey form”, or “…to choose among three proposal options for teambuilding activities.”  Each of these objectives has a clear outcome that measures the success of
your business meeting.

Business guru Peter Drucker said, “If managers spend more than 25% of their time in meetings, it is a sign of poor organization.”  One of the easiest ways that you can get your meetings organized is around a common purpose, and clear, action objectives provide the purpose that you’re looking for.