It’s that time again: the weekly department meeting. For many, this will mean an hour at the end of the day, gathered in somebody’s empty classroom, reviewing schemes of work over half a packet of stale biscuits.

Used well, meetings can be a means of achieving so many things: they are a chance for teams to problem solve, make key decisions, resolve conflicts, build trust and learn from one another.

But, let’s be honest, that’s not how most of us experience meetings. Instead, we show up to find an agenda with too many things on it, ill-defined processes and a lack of clarity about the purpose and the desired output.

Depending on how the meeting is led, we may experience mindless repetition of the same processes while people talk over one another and go off on tangents.

And all of this is happening in an environment where staff are already struggling to manage heavy workloads and multiple demands on their time.

So, how can middle and senior leaders end this tyranny of wasted hours and energy? By adopting these five core principles for making your meetings effective.

1. Set it up correctly

Before you call a meeting, have a really good think about why you are meeting and what you hope to achieve. Is the aim to communicate something already decided or to brainstorm a problem? Is it to address an issue or collect data to inform your thinking?

Often, meetings happen because they are simply a recurring event in the calendar. But if you can’t determine a clear purpose, then the meeting doesn’t really need to happen.

Let everyone know the purpose of the meeting and set out what they will need to have done or read before they come.

For longer meetings with multiple agenda items, be clear about the purpose of each item and allocate an appropriate length of time to each in advance.

Finally, start your meetings on time and have an expectation that people show up fully prepared.

2. Go slow to go fast

Another common derailer of meetings is the habit of jumping straight into the content without first taking time to agree on a process.

This may be because leaders think it’s quicker to dive right in, but it never is. You wouldn’t expect students to tackle a task in the classroom without some kind of set-up or clear instructions; just because the people in your meeting are adults, it doesn’t mean they wouldn’t benefit from the same.

Start by taking a moment to remind everyone of the purpose of your meeting and what you are trying to achieve, and take any questions about this before you move on.

You should also agree with attendees how you are going to use your time together by sectioning up the different elements - sharing information, brainstorming, agreeing solutions and so on. If, for some reason, you get into the thick of it and realise you need to use your time differently, agree on the change and move on together.

3. Clarify the decision-making rule

Making key decisions in a meeting is a challenge - often, the process is either rushed or the meeting ends without a decision being made, leaving it to be dealt with at some other, unspecified time.

The solution is to decide in advance how the decision is to be reached. Do you need a consensus? Will you go with the majority? Or is it a case where you, as the leader, will want to listen to everyone’s opinion, but ultimately make the decision for yourself or defer to another team member with relevant experience? Be clear at the beginning of the meeting about how the decision will be made so everyone knows the basis on which they are engaging.

4. Have an ‘above the line’ debate

Imagine a thick, black horizontal line. This line is a visual tool to think about how you (and your team) can show up to the meeting with the right mindset.

When we are above the line, we are motivated by learning - we genuinely listen to people, make space for the quieter people to speak, are interested by different points of view and hold our opinions lightly. When we are below the line, we are motivated by winning and being right. We pretend to listen, while in our heads we’re formulating our next response. We “politely” try to catch people out, are outwardly aggressive or manipulatively avoidant (giving plenty of messages with our body language while staying quiet).

So often, the true success of a meeting will hang on people’s level of curiosity, whether or not they are prepared to change their opinion and how happy they are if the final idea is one that someone else put forward.

The challenge for most us is that we’ve been trained in “below the line” tactics for many years - seeing the aim of a conversation as being to “get our way”. The question is, do you want to win, or to create better outcomes? Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the leader to model the right behaviour.

5. Build and grow

Be prepared to work on your meeting technique. Every so often, allocate 15 minutes at the end of a regular meeting to discuss how well you are doing at running meetings. Use the time to discuss anything that is or is not working well. Are people showing up prepared and on time? Are they contributing and completing their actions?

This might sound like a waste of time, but before you dismiss it, ask yourself: how many hours have you wasted in badly run meetings? Reframed this way, an extra 15 minutes every few weeks doesn’t seem that bad.

Elke Edwards is the founder of Ivy House London, creators of the Ivy House Award, a leadership and life-skills programme

This article originally appeared in the 18 June 2021 issue under the headline “Five steps to a better meeting”