Let’s face it, meetings can be boring affairs. Often, they are called unnecessarily or are poorly run. As a result, many people simply check out during meetings. It’s easy to see that they don’t appear to be listening; they’re on their phone; they’re checking e-mails on their laptops, etc. But this doesn’t have to be the case. One simple trick can help revamp your meetings: ask more questions of the attendees.
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Here are some benefits you’ll start to see:
Find the Holes in Your Observations and Plans
A recent study was conducted, in which speakers were paired with a listener who was either attentive or distracted. The study found that speakers who talked to a good listener saw both strengths and weaknesses more than those in the control group.
Speakers who talked to a distracted listener mostly described their strengths and barely acknowledged their weaknesses.
Make Sure Everyone Shows Up Prepared and Engaged
If you are inviting people to a meeting and they are used to being simply talked to, you can bet that they will start showing up after having done little, if any, preparation and planning to zone out.
If, on the other hand, you have a reputation for asking insightful questions and expecting people to answer them—as opposed to saying, “I’ll have to get back to you on that.”—you’ll find that people start showing up with a much different attitude.
Only Invite the People Who Need to Be There
If you start running meetings using the above tip, you might become aware that there are some people in the meeting you don’t necessarily have any questions for or struggle to come up with questions that are marginally important. This is a sign that these people aren’t necessarily essential for the meeting. You might be inviting some people in order to keep them in the loop, but this can also be accomplished by sending out meeting minutes.
Meetings can often feel like a waste of time The problem is that many meetings aren’t run properly and end up being of little value, especially relative to the time being spent by the people attending.
By simply asking more and better questions, you can quickly see the value of your meetings improve.