Organising meetings

Have you ever been in a meeting that feels like a waste of time?

I think the best way to keep a meeting on track is to have an agenda, but also to really be aware of timing.

I try to let other people do most of the talking. By leading it, I guess I am guiding the conversation, but mainly allowing other people to speak, I hope.

In this episode we'll talk about how to organise and run a meeting so that you get the job done.

Hello! Welcome to a new series of Office English from BBC Learning English. In this podcast, we help you find the right words for tricky situations at work. I'm Phil.

And I'm Pippa. Find a transcript for this episode on our website,

We just heard from Beth and Neil about meetings and how they try to keep them on track. If a meeting is on track, people are talking about the right things and the meeting doesn't go on too long. Pippa, have you ever been in a meeting that wasn't on track?

I have been in a meeting that wasn't on track. I have been in meetings where people have talked for an hour, and at the end of the meeting, I'm not sure what was decided. I've also been in meetings where people have talked for an hour, and it's been really exciting and great to discuss something. So I think, uh, yes, it can go either way when you have a meeting. What about you, Phil?

Yeah, I mean, I think the same. I think there's a real skill to chairing or facilitating a meeting, to keeping it on track. And you can achieve a lot when everyone's contributing and you're working to the topics that you want to achieve. Equally, they can just become not a very good use of everyone's time.

Yes. We've talked about meetings before on Office English, we talked about how to speak up in meetings. But today we're going to talk about organising a meeting, leading a meeting, and what to do when things go wrong.

So let's imagine you're at work and you want to set up, that means organise, a meeting with colleagues. The meeting will be to discuss a new policy at work, and you want to get the thoughts and ideas of other people. How do you organise the meeting to make sure things go well?

Well Phil, you need to plan. You need to be organised, um, so think about the purpose of the meeting. Do you have information that you need to share or do you need something from other people? Like their ideas, for example. Will the meeting be online or in person? Do you need a private space? Do you need a meeting room? And also who needs to come to the meeting? Does it need to be a whole team or maybe a smaller group? There's nothing worse than being invited to a meeting and actually, you didn't need to be there in the first place.

Yes. Also, when you're arranging a meeting and you send out the invitation to people, um, be clear what the meeting is about, because that can help people decide whether they need to attend or whether they need to check whether they need to attend. Um, so for something very formal, it might be 'this meeting is to discuss our new policy'. Um, it could also be informal. It might be a bit more chatty: 'I thought it would be a good idea to discuss the new policy that we want to implement'.

Um, yes. And tell people what to prepare if you want them to prepare something. So you could ask, 'could you have a think about the following points in advance of the meeting?' That just means before the meeting. Or you could ask, 'could everyone come to the meeting with three ideas to share?' for example.

Yes. And a really good thing to have for a meeting is the agenda. And that's the list of topics that you send out at the beginning of a meeting or before the meeting to tell people what you're going to talk about, and it just helps you structure the meeting and make sure that each section of it is on track, that it's going as you planned.

So, for example, with this policy meeting, you might start the agenda with the question 'what is the problem? ' And then you could say, 'what is the new policy?' That's the time to talk about the idea. And then maybe discussing pros and cons. That's the benefits and the negatives. And then maybe a section for other ideas towards the end of the meeting. OK. We've planned and organised our meeting. Now the day is actually here. What can we do to make sure the meeting runs smoothly, Phil?

Well, if you're trying to get other people's ideas, it's really important that you don't do all the talking. If you're in charge of the meeting, make sure you know how to facilitate it or chair it. And that just means manage the meeting.

So for example, try and get the thoughts of everyone. So, some people can be quite quiet. So, you might want to ask them a direct question. 'Do you have any thoughts to share?' or 'can you see any pitfalls in this idea?' Pitfalls means problems. So, can you see anything that might be wrong with this idea?

Yes. And the other thing that's really important for the person who's chairing or facilitating, managing the meeting is to keep the discussion on topic. You might have to say something like, 'that's a very valid point, but for today, let's focus on...' or 'I'm conscious that we don't have much time left to talk about this. Are there any more thoughts about this?' Um, it's just to make sure that you're dealing with the things that you plan to talk about, and also that you're not talking about things that you can't have any control over, because you're not going to be able to make any decisions on those.

Another thing to think about with meetings is the hierarchy in your workplace.

Yes, it could be that some people in senior roles um, feel that they have to make a comment. It might be hard, perhaps, for people in more junior roles sometimes to make comments in front of more senior people. All of this will depend on the culture in your workplace. So sometimes it's not an issue, but sometimes the person chairing the meeting might need to deal with that sort of sensitively. As we mentioned earlier, sometimes meetings can cause frustration. Let's hear from Neil and Beth again.

I really don't like it when people are late for a meeting. I don't like it when meetings overrun, um, because they haven't been planned out. And if they're just, just sort of talking for talking's sake, they're a waste of time.

Another annoying thing that happens is when you have a meeting, but nobody has made any notes. So, you finish the meeting and then everyone sort of forgets what happened and you need to have another meeting, or you need to try and remember what people said.

Both Beth and Neil mentioned meetings, sometimes feeling like a waste of time. What do you think, Phil?

I mean, they definitely can be a waste of time if they're not well planned. Um, there's that famous saying, isn't there? This meeting could have been an email. Which would be much quicker for everyone involved.

Yes, and Neil said this really great phrase, talking for talking's sake. This is a really nice expression, which means you talk because you feel like you should rather than because you have something to say. And this can happen if the meeting isn't planned properly. It often happens in meetings that are catch up meetings that maybe happen every week or once a month. They're in the diary, so everyone goes and then they feel they need to say something because there's a meeting and actually they waste a lot of time because there isn't really anything to discuss.

Yes, definitely. Um, another thing. Beth mentioned taking notes, um, which might just be notes you take individually or if there's someone doing it and it's a bit more formal. We call them minutes, but they're basically the same thing. A note of what was said in the meeting. And it's often quite important to have notes so that you can capture what's been said and what you need to do, um, anything you need to remember, things like that, that have come out of the meeting.

Um, yeah. And it can be quite difficult to run a meeting, to chair the meeting, and also take notes. So in formal meetings, you tend to have somebody who is tasked with taking notes, with writing the minutes. Um, but in more informal meetings, maybe you want everyone to be able to talk properly in the meeting. You don't want anyone to be constantly writing down everything that anyone else has said. Um, so a useful way to deal with taking notes is to kind of have a summary at the end of the meeting where you agree on the key points from the discussion and what's going to happen next. So if I was leading a meeting, I might at the end say something like, 'would it be fair to say...?' and then summarise what I feel the discussion has concluded. Or I might tell people what I'm going to do. So I could say 'off the back of this meeting I'm going to...' and then explain. Or I could just get everyone to do this together. I could say, 'let's make a list of action points from this discussion'. And I think this really helps to make sure that at the end of the meeting, everyone feels like a decision has been made, or there's a next step, which is a bit jargony, but it just means what are you going to do next? Um, otherwise it does feel like a waste of time.

That's it for this episode of Office English. We'll be back next week with another episode all about rules at work.

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