There is no blueprint for how meetings succeed for every team and in every company, in my experience. Each team is individual and therefore it is natural that each team needs their own rules. But to get first ideas at all, inspiration is helpful. That’s why I give you the most important meeting rules that my team and I heed.

If you want to try some of it, feel free!

1.
We meet free of interference. That’s why we put smartphones down at the entrance of the meeting room and fold the laptops – except we present.
2.
We start each meeting with two minutes in silence. Everyone is asked to ask themselves, “What is the most important point for me in this meeting today?” We write down our thoughts on this.
3.
We listen to everyone who speaks – focused, curious and appreciative. We let the speaker talk out. We keep our distance from interruptions.
4.
When we speak, we focus on the essentials. We leave away side settings, and instead of talking like a waterfall, we prefer to take a little break to collect our thoughts.
5.
At certain points, we work with fixed speaking times. We use lightning rounds if everyone is to comment on a particular issue, and thus quickly get a full picture of the prevailing opinions. (Lightning round means: Everyone has a minute to answer the question or express their opinion).
6.
The presenter has the brief and enforcement strength to mark and stop major deviations.
7.
We end each meeting with a final reflection to improve the quality of the meetings.

1.We meet free of interference. That’s why we put smartphones down at the entrance of the meeting room and fold the laptops – except we present.

2. We start each meeting with two minutes in silence. Everyone is asked to ask themselves, “What is the most important point for me in this meeting today?” We write down our thoughts on this.

3. We listen to everyone who speaks, focused, curious and appreciative. We let the speaker talk out. We keep our distance from interruptions.

4. When we speak, we focus on the essentials. We leave away side settings, and instead of talking like a waterfall, we prefer to take a little break to collect our thoughts.

5. At certain points, we work with fixed speaking times. We use lightning rounds if everyone is to comment on a particular issue, and thus quickly get a full picture of the prevailing opinions. (Lightning round means: Everyone has a minute to answer the question or express their opinion).

6.The moderator has the brief and the enforcement strength to mark and stop large deviations.

7. We end each meeting with a final reflection to improve the quality of the meetings.

Becoming mindful, achieving more.

If you have interesting and effective meeting rules yourself, or are in the process of developing them in a team, I am happy if you share your rules with me!

And if your team is talking about communication under and over, you might be interested in the workshop “appreciative and to the point.”