Effective Meetings in 7 simple steps

Where to hold a meeting poses two problems. One is whether to hold it inside or outside the office. The other is room and layout.

Office or elsewhere?

Most people think the right place to hold a meeting is around a table in an office. But meetings can take place anywhere. Some take place in the break-out areas in offices (the more informal areas with sofas and bean bags). See Step 5 (#litres_trial_promo) for more information on informal meetings. Others take place in hotel lobbies or in restaurants over lunch or dinner. There are also away-days that are purposely arranged so they are off-site, i.e. away from the office, often in a business centre, so that people can get away from their day job and think about bigger picture issues.

If the groundwork for a meeting is done in a more relaxing environment, the formal bit, the confirmation, if you like, can be done in the office.

The office isn’t always the best place to start a series of meetings. It is usually the best place to finish them.

One of the key advantages of meetings outside the office is that participants are not so likely to get sucked into everyday office business. For example, if training sessions are held in the office training room there is a constant temptation to nip back to the office to check messages and make phone calls during the breaks. Obviously, participants can still access messages on their mobiles or laptops but off-site training means the interruptions will be fewer and briefer.

Meeting room organisation and layout

Dedicated meeting rooms should be OK for your meeting. But do check. They may be festooned with wires for conference calls or have computers on every desk.

Check the room you’ve booked is the right size and has enough chairs. And also check it doesn’t have too many chairs. Twenty chairs round a table when you have a meeting of five may make the place feel a bit empty. A bit like a restaurant with too many waiters and no guests. Check what’s in the room and around the walls. Is there anything you’d prefer your meeting attendees not to see? Also check the facilities. Is the space clean? Are the rubbish bins empty? Is the whiteboard clean? Is there a flipchart? Do you need data projection facilities?

When you’ve got your room, check the layout. Different kinds of layouts work for different kinds of activity. See here (#u7e8078f5-9beb-4655-adf3-1d8ce67d3f21) for the different layouts.

Boardroom

When you see the US government around the table in the White House in Washington DC or the Cabinet room at Number 10 Downing Street, the British Prime Minister’s residence and office in London, you’re looking at a boardroom layout. It’s good for limited discussion and creating a collective atmosphere.

The leader or convenor of a meeting is often called the chair (a unisex term).

Here’s a useful tip. If you want to get noticed in a meeting, make sure you are within the eyeline of the meeting leader. Just opposite or slightly to the right or left facing them is probably best.

Circle

Circles are for togetherness and for exchange. People in a circle, without tables, are favoured by ‘self-development’ groups. It’s supposed to encourage the exchange of personal information in a more relaxed environment. Going back to our meetings-as-tribal-gatherings analogy, American Indian pow-wows (discussions) were traditionally held in a circle. Traditional African village discussions are held in a circle under a tree in the village ‘square’, often with the leader in the middle holding a shell or other symbol giving him/her the right to speak. The Roman Senate sat in a circle and the United Nations and the EU debating chambers each form a semi-circle. Circles and semi-circles stress togetherness. Rows facing each other stress opposition – hence the layout of the British House of Commons.

Horseshoe

The horseshoe also encourages discussion, but also allows more space and freedom. Horseshoes work well for brainstorming and open discussion and have the advantage that all participants can see each other and address each other, with no one in a superior position.

Cabaret

Cabaret layouts work well for meetings where there are 12 or more participants, and they are seated around tables for three or four, a bit like tables in a nightclub – hence the name cabaret. A cabaret layout allows for lots of group work and reporting back.

Theatre

For large groups, sitting in rows might be the best way to proceed. It’s difficult to have group discussion in a theatre layout though. It’s best for listening to a presentation and asking and answering questions afterwards (Q&A).

Facing rows

Avoid this one if you can. It promotes opposition, as mentioned earlier. The British parliamentary system is based on government versus opposition. So it’s noisy and, in a fairly friendly British way, antagonistic.

The same occurs in business, but it’s not always friendly. Sometimes, this layout is dictated by the shape of the room and the number of attendees. The danger is that if people are opposite each other, they will naturally sit with those they agree with and opposite those they don’t.

As an example: a firm had contractual difficulties with one of its affiliates. A meeting was arranged to try to resolve the problem. Unfortunately, the meeting room had a table with two rows of chairs facing each other. The contractor and her team sat on one side and the affiliate and his team on the other. The atmosphere was stiff and cold. Points of agreement were difficult to find.

Then the contractor had a brainwave. She suggested they take a break, and during the break she changed the meeting room. The new room had a round table! Immediately, there was a more positive atmosphere, and after more discussion both sides reached an agreement.

What had changed? The meeting leader was convinced of one thing. Sitting round a table in a circle diminished the atmosphere of confrontation and increased the willingness to cooperate.

Meeting room layouts

As a final thought, have you ever watched The Apprentice? Think what you’ve learned about meeting organisation and room layout – how does it apply to what you’ve seen on the show? At first, it’s lovey dovey. Lord Sugar arrives in his Bentley. He stands in front of the teams, mixes them up and gives them the task. Fifty minutes later, it’s another story. He sits at a desk in front of a frosted glass door, flanked by his cohorts. Opposite him in two rows sit or stand the two teams. There aren’t enough seats for everyone.

It’s a mixture of theatre style, in this case more like a classroom, and facing rows. The two teams aren’t actually facing each other, but it feels very oppositional – almost like a courtroom. The layout seems designed for maximum superiority (Lord Sugar) and maximum humiliation (the contestants).

This is nothing to do with Lord Sugar, but everything to do with the production values which, Big Brother style, try to create tension and conflict in order to build audiences. The age of the gladiator is not dead! But it’s exactly the wrong way to set up and run a meeting.

Imagine if the approach was cooperative and aimed at showing everyone at their best. People would sit next to, not opposite each other. They would discuss in a circle, a horseshoe or cabaret style, not in facing rows. Lord Sugar and his cohorts would sit among the contestants, not apart from them.

Layout determines whether the atmosphere will be collaborative or confrontational.

So let’s imagine you are asked to organise a meeting. What? No! That’ll never happen to you! Well, actually it might. An intern was asked to organise the weekly management meeting. Why? It was a good way to test her organising skills and her willingness to take responsibility and use her initiative. She came through with flying colours and, as a result of this and her other work, got an offer of a permanent job.

What did she do? She used the framework. Five W’s and an H:

WHY? First she asked why the meeting was necessary. What was it intended to achieve?

WHAT? Then she checked the topic. That would go on the invitation.

WHO? Then she asked who needed to be invited, names and job titles. She double-checked these. (Her life would have been a misery if she had got them wrong!)

WHEN? Her line manager suggested a time, but she needed to check alternatives. She used a time chart to check everyone’s availability and found a date and time that suited everyone.

WHERE? She had to decide whether to hold the meeting in the office or outside the office. In the event, her line manager preferred the office. So she booked a room, checked it, moved the tables and chairs around, ensured there was a data projector and booked tea, coffee, biscuits and a sandwich lunch from the canteen.

HOW? What needs to happen?

Having decided on the Why, What, Who, When and Where, the intern finally had to deal with the How. What did she need to do?

1 Book a room.

2 Send out the invitations.

3 Chase up anyone who hadn’t replied.

4 Circulate the agenda and any papers to be ‘tabled’ (discussed).

5 Chase up anybody who hadn’t replied (there’ll always be a few).

6 Check the room was OK for the meeting. Raid the stationery cupboard (for any pens/paper the participants will need).

7 Telephone attendees to remind them.