Leadership Coaching: 12 Tips for Successful Team Meetings

When you are planning a team meeting, the following are some of the things that you should definitely include in your approach.

1. Keep your team meetings engaging. People have to feel happy about the fact that they are attending. Fashion your meeting in such a way that there is someone for everyone to do; they all feel involved.
2. Keep asking people their opinions on things. You need to keep your team meetings as interactive as possible.
3. People who are attending the team meeting already have some strengths and talents that they play on. You have to include certain elements in your meeting that help them develop those strengths. This gives people a sense of contentment when the meeting is over.
4. Always be open-minded. You might have prepared a lot for your team meeting, but always bear in mind that there could be different outcomes; someone could come up with a different suggestion. Be receptive to all such ideas.
5. Keep yourself flexible. If a change is needed even during the course of the meeting, be accepting of that.
6. Be honest with the team members. Respect the intelligence of the people that you are talking to. Don't lie; don't hide relevant facts. Let them know everything there is to know and arrive at their own conclusions as much as possible. Don't spoon-feed people with what you want them to know.
7. Keep your meeting interactive. Let everyone have their say. Ask a lot of questions and allow the attending people to ask a lot of questions too.
8. Listen to what people say. Ask them again if you want clarification. Invite people to share their ideas.
9. Show interest in the proceedings. Enthusiasm is contagious. If you are excited, the people attending your meeting will be excited too.
10. Show compassion towards your team members. Respect their strengths and weaknesses. Respect the constraints they might be working against.
11. To a point, be curious. Ask questions to know facts from the team members even if they are not saying anything about it. The very fact that you showed interest in them makes people feel interested.
12. Smile. Its easier and more fun around happy vs. grumpy people