The below piece was written by Tony Carey, Head of Advisory at Cooney Carey. 

I want to revisit a topic I first discussed in January 2019, in a pre-Covid world. That topic is “A guide to holding a successful meeting”. A lot has changed since 2019, so I thought it would be helpful to revisit this topic. I attend an average of 10 - 15 meetings a week (client and internal meetings), which when I think about, over 30+ years of experience is upwards of 16,000 meetings and counting. Many of my meetings now are via various video conferencing apps such is the current environment we are in, but the points below still hold. Each person has different strengths and qualities in their professional armoury but when it comes to holding a successful meeting, there are a few fundamentals that have stood me in good stead down through my advisory career. This list is not an exhaustive, but merely a list of the take-away points that have resonated with me over the course of my career to date:

• Always come to the meeting with a positive attitude.
• Be prompt in arriving and return from any breaks held during the meeting.
• Understand why everyone is in attendance.
• Define purpose from the outset.
• Come prepared to a meeting and never try to wing it.
• Speak one at a time and try to wait for the right moment to interject. 
• Make sure your point adds or creates value. Reiterating a point already made doesn’t add value but prolongs the meeting.
• Try not to tuck into the boardroom sweet jar, halfway through the meeting.
• Listen - we were blessed with two ears and one mouth for a reason – particularly important in respect of client meetings.
• Keep the flow – deal with one topic at a time and move on once finished.
• Don’t revisit old topics.
• Keep good notes.
• Humour can often lighten the tension – Be careful to ensure appropriateness and to whom it may be directed. 
• Ensure action points are identified, agreed and recorded.
• Respect other’s ideas – there is no such thing as a “bad” idea, but there may often be a better one.
• Summarise the action points at the end and try to end the meeting on time.

 

For video calls, I would add the following tips:

 

• Have confidence in your ability to use the technology including screen share if required.
• If it is not your time to speak, mute your microphone, nobody wants to hear your dog barking at the postman but don’t forget to unmute when your time to speak arrives.
• Allow for a lag between questions and responses, not everyone has the same lightning fast connection as you, so additional patience is required.
• If your camera is on, stay in shot, the wall behind you might be nice, but it can’t talk back!

 

Wishing all our clients a very Happy Christmas and we look forward to seeing each other again in 2022.