Ideas for Hosting Engaging Staff Meetings

“Let’s have a meeting to talk about meetings,” said no one ever. But maybe we should. A Microsoft global survey found the #1 workplace distraction is inefficient meetings. The #2? Too many of them. Sound familiar? Last week, I led a meeting effectiveness workshop for a team of 15 at the request of their practice leader—who happens to be my husband. His team’s meeting struggles? Rambling discussions, uneven engagement, unclear outcomes, and lack of follow-through. He thought a meeting AI tool might fix it. Nope. AI can help document meetings, but it can’t make people prepare better, participate more, or drive decisions. The fix? It’s not “Have an agenda”. It’s setting the right meeting norms. My husband was hesitant to put me in the late morning slot–worried the team would tune out before lunch. I told him, “Put me in, coach. I’ll show you engagement.” And I did. For 90 minutes, we tackled meeting norms head-on through interactive discussions and small group exercises. Here are 5 norms they worked through to transform their meetings: 1️⃣ 𝗦𝗲𝘁 𝗰𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗰𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗮 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮 𝗺𝗲𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴. An agenda is a list of topics. A purpose answers: What critical decision needs to be made? What problem are we solving? Why does this require a discussion? If you can’t summarize the purpose in one sentence with an action verb, you don’t need a meeting. 2️⃣ 𝗕𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘄𝗵𝗼’𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗼𝗼𝗺. Some discussions only need two people; others require a small group or the full team. Match the participants and group size to the topic and purpose.  3️⃣ 𝗗𝗲𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗲. Before the meeting, define the problem or goal. Identify potential solutions. Recommend one. Outline your criteria for selecting the solution(s). Back it up with data or other relevant information. Preparation = productivity. 4️⃣ 𝗔𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝗮 𝗳𝗮𝗰𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗼 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻. A good facilitator keeps conversations on track, reins in tangents, and ensures all voices –not just the loudest–are heard. Facilitation matters more than the agenda. 5️⃣ 𝗘𝗻𝗱 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗰𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀. Summarize decisions. Assign action items. Set deadlines. Follow-up to ensure accountability and progress. A meeting without follow-through is just wasted time. The outcome of the workshop? 100% engagement. (One person even admitted she normally tunes out in these things but stayed engaged the entire time!) More importantly, the team aligned on meeting norms and left with actionable steps to improve. Want better meetings? Set better norms. Focus on facilitation. What’s one meeting tip that’s worked well for your team?

Ever notice how some leaders seem to have a sixth sense for meeting dynamics while others plow through their agenda oblivious to glazed eyes, side conversations, or everyone needing several "bio breaks" over the course of an hour? Research tells us executives consider 67% of virtual meetings failures, and a staggering 92% of employees admit to multitasking during meetings. After facilitating hundreds of in-person, virtual, and hybrid sessions, I've developed my "6 E's Framework" to transform the abstract concept of "reading the room" into concrete skills anyone can master. (This is exactly what I teach leaders and teams who want to dramatically improve their meeting and presentation effectiveness.) Here's what to look for and what to do: 1. Eye Contact: Notice where people are looking (or not looking). Are they making eye contact with you or staring at their devices? Position yourself strategically, be inclusive with your gaze, and respectfully acknowledge what you observe: "I notice several people checking watches, so I'll pick up the pace." 2. Energy: Feel the vibe - is it friendly, tense, distracted? Conduct quick energy check-ins ("On a scale of 1-10, what's your energy right now?"), pivot to more engaging topics when needed, and don't hesitate to amplify your own energy through voice modulation and expressive gestures. 3. Expectations: Regularly check if you're delivering what people expected. Start with clear objectives, check in throughout ("Am I addressing what you hoped we'd cover?"), and make progress visible by acknowledging completed agenda items. 4. Extraneous Activities: What are people doing besides paying attention? Get curious about side conversations without defensiveness: "I see some of you discussing something - I'd love to address those thoughts." Break up presentations with interactive elements like polls or small group discussions. 5. Explicit Feedback: Listen when someone directly tells you "we're confused" or "this is exactly what we needed." Remember, one vocal participant often represents others' unspoken feelings. Thank people for honest feedback and actively solicit input from quieter participants. 6. Engagement: Monitor who's participating and how. Create varied opportunities for people to engage with you, the content, and each other. Proactively invite (but don't force) participation from those less likely to speak up. I've shared my complete framework in the article in the comments below. In my coaching and workshops with executives and teams worldwide, I've seen these skills transform even the most dysfunctional meeting cultures -- and I'd be thrilled to help your company's speakers and meeting leaders, too. What meeting dynamics challenge do you find most difficult to navigate? I'd love to hear your experiences in the comments! #presentationskills #virualmeetings #engagement

I’ve been thinking a lot about the 90 minute virtual meeting paradox. We spend the first 30 minutes on welcoming everyone and introductions, the next 15 on framing, and then a few people share thoughts. Then, just when the conversation gets meaningful, the host abruptly announces "We're out of time!” and throws a few rushed closing thoughts and announcements together. Sound familiar? We crave deep, meaningful, trust-based exchanges in virtual meeting environments that feel both tiring and rushed. It seems like as soon as momentum builds and insights emerge, it’s time to wrap up. Share-outs become a regurgitation of top-level ideas—usually focused on the most soundbite-ready insights and omitting those seeds of ideas that didn’t have time to be explored further. And sometimes, we even cite these meetings as examples of participation in a process, even when that participation is only surface level to check the participation box.  After facilitating and attending hundreds (thousands?) of virtual meetings, I've found four practices that create space for more engagement and depth: 1. Send a thoughtful and focused pre-work prompt at least a few days ahead of time that invites reflection before gathering. When participants arrive having already engaged with the core question(s), it’s much easier to jump right into conversation. Consider who designs these prompts and whose perspectives they center. 2. Replace round-robin introductions with a focused check-in question that directly connects to the meeting's purpose. "What's one tension you're navigating in this work?" for example yields more insight than sharing organizational affiliations. Be mindful of who speaks first and how difference cultural communication styles may influence participation.  3. Structure the agenda with intentionally expanding time blocks—start tight (and facilitate accordingly), and then create more spaciousness as the meeting progresses. This honors the natural rhythm of how trust and dialogue develop, and allows for varying approaches to processing and sharing.  4. Prioritize accessibility and inclusion in every aspect of the meeting. Anticipating and designing for participants needs means you’re thinking about language justice, technology and materials accessibility, neurodivergence, power dynamics, and content framing. Asking “What do you need to fully participate in this meeting?” ahead of time invites participants to share their needs. These meeting suggestions aren’t just about efficiency—they’re about creating spaces where authentic relationships and useful conversations can actually develop. Especially at times when people are exhausted and working hard to manage their own energy, a well-designed meeting can be a welcome space to engage. I’m curious to hear from others: What's your most effective strategy for holding substantive meetings in time-constrained virtual spaces? What meeting structures have you seen that actually work?

What if meetings were more like workshops? Too often, the answer to “why are we holding a meeting?” is "to inform." We have our quarterly reports, our data dumps, our program overviews, our budget presentations... and if you ask people why they're sharing that content, they'll say: "To tell people about…" "To let them know…" What might happen, though, if we add two simple words to that response and ask them to complete the thought? Here are those two words: 👉 "so that" “So that” sounds simple, but represents a powerful shift in thinking. Here's what it looks like: “We need to let the department know about the quarterly figures so that …” “We want to give people an overview of the new program so that…” “We need to tell people what the budget for next year is so that…” If you're leading a meeting and you can complete those sentences, you're on your way to more engaging meetings. If you know WHY your audience needs the information and what they will do with it, you can design the meeting so that outcome is likely to happen. (And yes, "so that" works in a lot of places! 😁) Here's a starting block for you: 🌟 What might your audience need to process, reflect on, or make connections with in order to do what they need to do with the information you're presenting? Then, go to your favorite workshop or course playbook, and design the meeting (to make that happen), vs just holding it.

Meetings are broken. 13 unconventional ideas to fix them: 93% of workers have complaints about their meetings. And even 71% of senior leaders say meetings are unproductive. The old ideas aren't working. We need more radical ones: 1) Ban them ↳Typically, meetings are the default - they happen and often ↳Flip it so they're taboo (not a full ban, but close), and only occur when truly justified 2) Restrict them ↳Assign days (like Monday and Friday) and times (before 10, after 3) when they're forbidden ↳The harder they are to schedule, the more people will question the necessity 3) Try email first ↳We've all heard "that meeting could have been an email" - so try it ↳Before sending a meeting invite, email participants the relevant info, and ensure everyone agrees a meeting is necessary 4) "No agenda, no attenda" ↳If there isn't a clear agenda with key decisions sent at least 24 hours before, the meeting is cancelled ↳Meetings without clear plans prevent preparation and ultimately take longer 5) Start at odd times ↳Never start a meeting at :00 or :30 - people will have something until RIGHT before and inevitably be late ↳Start at 9:07 a.m. or 1:33 p.m. to grab attention and ensure punctuality 6) Display a cost per minute ↳Calculate the hourly rate of all attendees and display the running cost of the meeting in real time ↳It reminds people that meetings don't cost an hour, they cost an hour TIMES the number of people TIMES their hourly rate 7) Ban phones ↳Removing phones and computers removes multitasking, and ensures everyone is fully present ↳It also requires people to come prepared, knowing they can't lean on notes 8) Remove chairs ↳Standing meetings encourage brevity and focus - and are better for everyone's health 9) Have a timer ↳Like a presidential debate or an Oscars award speech, each person gets a short amount of time and then gets cut off ↳No exceptions - have an audible timer 10) Use a 10-word rule ↳Everyone must start their turn by summarizing their key point in 10 words or less ↳Leading with the headline is comms 101, and it forces people to be clearer and more concise 11) Brainstorm silently ↳If new information or questions arise, allow 1 minute of silent brainstorming ↳This lets people clarify their thinking, avoids groupthink, and empowers introverted participants 12) Forbid follow-ups ↳All key takeaways and next steps must be captured in the meeting, agreed upon, and shared instantly ↳No "I'll send out the action items afterward" or "we'll have a follow-up meeting next week" 13) Reexamine the need ↳End the meeting by asking everyone whether it actually needed to happen and everyone needed to be there ↳Use those takeaways to further cut future meetings and limit group size The vast majority of workers think meetings need to change. You might not use all of these, But give some a try to start turning things around. Any others you'd add? --- ♻️ Repost to help fix more meetings. And follow me George Stern for more

If your team meetings are unproductive & going in circles, it’s probably because your approach is off… There are a couple of ways you might be missing the mark in meetings: → Asking too many *vague* questions wastes time. → Making it a 1-way conversation is a relationship KILLER. → Information overload leads to an overwhelmed/bombarded team. If you want to rid your meetings of these flaws & transform their effectiveness… The key lies in using the D.A.R.E. framework! This method ensures your meetings are clear, engaging, and productive—taking your business communication to the NEXT level. Here’s a breakdown to put it in perspective: *D* - Drilling During meetings, focus on detailed inquiries that drive deeper understanding without sounding accusatory or intrusive. ↳ Instead of asking, ‘How is the project going?’ try, ‘Can you give me a status update on the current milestones we've outlined for this project?’ *A* - Adjoining Create discussions where everyone is comfortable sharing—preventing tunnel vision & encouraging new perspectives. ↳ Say something like, ‘let's go around the table and hear everyone's take on this idea. What do you think, Alex?’ *R* - Rising Summarize what’s been discussed + connect it to the bigger picture—Helps identify underlying issues & possible opportunities. ↳ Ask like this: ‘Given what we've discussed, how does this align with our long-term strategy? Are we missing any key elements?’ *E* - Exploratory Promote open-ended questions to explore all angles of a problem. You’ll craft well-rounded solutions that aren’t impulsive. ↳ For example: ‘What are the possible challenges we might face with this approach? Are there alternative solutions we haven't considered?’ By incorporating Drilling, Adjoining, Rising, and Exploratory techniques… Your message goes from mundane—to highly effective. DARE to try to approach? Revolutionize your meeting technique today!