Whether held in person or online, unproductive meetings are a monumental waste of time and money, which is the last thing a startup needs. According to research from the prestigious London School of Economics, 35% of meetings are deemed unproductive and cost the US economy a whopping $259 billion every year.
An organization’s meeting culture, which develops over time, can be a major contributor to knowledge sharing, facilitating growth, and encouraging productivity. However, when it comes to startups, you’re starting with a clean slate.
So, how do you develop or adopt a smarter meeting culture to put your organization on the path to success? Let’s find out.
How To Create A Positive Meeting Culture
You need to take a multifaceted approach to create a smarter culture in your startup. This requires considering every aspect of your meetings, from scheduling and frequency to agendas and follow-ups.
Use these tips to positively change the way your organization structures and holds meetings.
1. Use Technology to Streamline Communication
For startups, state-of-the-art meeting technology can be a game-changer. Tools like smart scheduling assistants, real-time collaboration platforms, and all-in-one video conferencing devices streamline communication and eliminate wasted time, while interactive whiteboards and integrated apps keep meetings focused and productive.
By embracing this type of technology, on-site, remote, and hybrid meetings become more inclusive, efficient, and engaging, encouraging better decision-making, clearer follow-ups, and a more connected team culture.
2. Evaluate Your Current Schedule
You need to know what’s going on in terms of your startup’s meetings before you can make changes effectively. Start by assessing your current schedule, paying attention to the frequency and duration of meetings.
You might find it helpful to create a chart listing the names of the different meetings, how frequently they’re held, how long they are, and who the attendees are. This alone may help you identify where you can combine sessions, hold fewer, or implement more frequent intervals.
You should also have a good idea of which of your current meetings are more successful than others. If you notice this, pay attention to what makes them successful, as this can help inform the culture you want to create.
3. Create a Regular Schedule
Life is what happens after we make plans, so you will need to hold ad-hoc meetings from time to time. However, this does not mean that they should all be unplanned. Instead, create a set weekly or monthly schedule, keeping specific sessions at the same time on the same day.
These schedules ensure your team knows what to expect and when to expect it, allowing them to prepare adequately. A schedule also ensures that there aren’t long, frustrating gaps between each session.
4. Keep Meetings Short and Focused
Holding long, drawn-out sessions is a great way to get minds and the conversation to wander. To avoid this, keep your startup’s meetings short and focused. Assess how much time your team needs to discuss the topic, as this can help keep things on track.
If other topics arise, suggest scheduling a separate date and time to discuss them.
5. State Each Meeting’s Core Elements
Stating the core elements of each meeting you hold can help keep them focused and short. Use the core elements you defined to assess whether you actually need to convene or whether it would be better to communicate the relevant information to the appropriate employees in an email.
6. Choose and Rotate Moderators and Scribes
In a smarter meeting culture, every session is led by a moderator who communicates the agenda to participants, ensures the relevant employees attend, and keeps the discussion on track. Appoint a moderator for every meeting you hold, with the understanding that they have the role for that session only.
If the team has a regular weekly meeting, create a moderator roster to give each person the opportunity to moderate. This can help employees feel valued and more engaged, especially if you have a remote team and meet online.
You should also designate a scribe or use an AI transcription program to take minutes and ensure they’re sent to all who attended or who were supposed to attend. The minutes should include the names of those who committed to or who were tasked with follow-up actions.
7. Set and Stick to an Agenda
“You have a meeting to make a decision, not to decide on the question.” – Bill Gates
Make sure your meetings stay on track by setting and sticking to an agenda. The agenda should include the goal, topics for discussion, and the names of the team members who are expected to attend. Ask the moderator to communicate the agenda to all participants prior to the meeting, ensuring that any remote team members are aware of it well in advance.
8. Communicate Requirements Upfront
Set pre-meeting requirements and ask the moderator to communicate them in advance. The requirements should include what each employee is expected to bring, as well as any documents that need to be read beforehand. This allows attendees to prepare adequately and can help reduce the time spent bringing everyone up to speed at the start of the session.
9. Invite Guest Speakers Occasionally
With the same people attending every time, meetings can quickly become echo chambers. Keep things fresh by occasionally inviting guest speakers to give a brief presentation.
For example, you can invite an investor to explain why they invested in your startup, a customer who has successfully used your products or services to tell their story, or the founder of another startup to describe how they do things.
10. Give Employees the Floor
A smarter meeting culture is one in which employees have a say, rather than being limited to being an audience spoken to by management.
Ask relevant employees if there are any points they would like to add to the agenda a few days before creating and communicating it. Additionally, ask an employee to give a short talk or presentation. For example, you could ask someone from your finance team to explain budget initiatives or an engineer to demonstrate how a new product works.
Along with giving employees the floor, it’s important to recognize and reward top-performing employees. Consider giving a floating award to a different employee at every meeting or setting aside a few minutes to recognize key contributors.
Set Your Startup Up for Successful Meetings
For startups, time and focus are critical. By building a meeting culture that values structure, engagement, and mutual respect from the get-go, fast-moving teams can stay aligned and motivated.
Use the tips above to create a positive culture where structured, engaging practices set the tone for teams that collaborate and are empowered and productive.
