How To Keep Everyone Engaged During Business Meetings
by Arina Smith Business Planning & Opportunities 29 April 2020
Business meetings are a great way to share ideas on how to run a business successfully. They are a part of everyday business life, and when they are becoming a regular practice at a workplace, you need to do certain things to get the most out of them. The main question that comes to every manager’s mind is how you get your employees more engaged in a business meeting. However, before we talk about what to do, there will be many types of employees that you will face in a meeting.
People with a strategic mind will have their ideas and would want to give their opinions on everything. There will also be many attendees that are going to talk like they are conducting the meeting. Also, there will be certain people who will come to a meeting late. Not to mention people who will pull out their phones in the middle of an important discussion. Dealing with certain types of attendees is going to be a difficult thing; however, there are some things you can do to keep everybody engaged. Today, we are going to share with you certain ways you can use to keep everyone engaged in a business meeting, whether it be a latecomer or someone who is a mobile addict. These ways are listed as follows;
Add Interactivity
Other than having a dialogue session, you can engage your attendees and make them feel an important part of the business meeting by introducing some form of interactive activities. You can either quiz them or ask them to make the team and come up with new ideas on how to make your business more efficient. Also, you can present a certain idea that you wish to implement and ask the attendees to do a poll on it. The poll can be done by asking your employees to either reply with a yes or a no. A whiteboard, along with a whiteboard marker, can be used, and attendees can share their views on the whiteboard for everyone to see.
You can also do a standing meeting as it will allow your attendees to stay engaged in the meeting at all times as they will be physically on the move. You can also give your presentation in the form of a video as no one likes to watch boring images. Seeing a video will engage your attendees, and you will have their attention towards you at all times.
Choose The Right Location
The productivity of a meeting is also sometimes defined by the space in which it is held. Imagine a place with no windows, greenery, or white noise. The location is of utmost importance if you want to keep your attendees engaged.
A good idea would be to conduct the business meeting in a space that has plenty of light, fresh air, and an ample amount of comfortable seats. This will allow the attendees to be inspired, and they will have more of an input in the business meeting than they did before. If you are conducting a one on one meeting, you can choose a location like a nearby coffee shop to keep things lively and interesting.
Ask Attendees To Put Away Their Phones
Mobile phones nowadays can be used to check emails, browse the web, or even log on to social media. Due to the presence of such a thing, it is easy to see why mobile phones can become a huge distraction during a business meeting. If you want your attendees to be engaged in the meeting, ask them to either put their smartphones away or turn on airplane mode.
For a more effective solution, a good idea would be to ask your attendees to place a sticky note with their names on it on their smartphones and place them in a basket. This basket can then be kept by your side so that your attendees do not keep on checking their emails or social media during the business meeting. It will force them to get more engaged in the meeting other than their phones.
Keep An Eye On Your Attendee’s Attention Span
Have you ever noticed that a discussion on ted talks are no longer than 20 minutes? It is because 20 minutes will be enough for you to convey whatever it is you are trying to convey to the attendees. This amount of time is also short enough to keep your attendees’ attention towards you. So, if you want to engage your employees more, you should apply the same concept and keep your business meetings under 25-30 minutes.
If the meetings require more time to cover all the important topics, conduct 20-minute sessions with 10-minute breaks in between to keep everyone fresh and avoid any kind of boredom and tiredness from setting in.
The Final Words
Before you even consider conducting a business meeting yourself, it will be a good idea that you asses your team beforehand. To accomplish this, you can ask someone else from your team to conduct a meeting and look at how the attendees react. After seeing this, you will be able to know which member of your team is suitable to handle which role, and you will be able to assign them their roles accordingly. Follow that by setting a plan and initiate it. Today, we have shared with you some ways to keep everyone engaged in a meeting. It is a good idea that you consider them before you conduct your next business meeting.
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