How to Chair a Business Meeting

Business meetings can be productive if chaired correctly.

Those who are in positions of management will often have to chair meetings with their team or peers to discuss pressing subjects, distribute information or ascertain progress on a project. Meetings are vital tools in ensuring effective team communication, but need to be chaired properly to be truly worthwhile and rewarding. Therefore, knowing how to chair a meeting is an important business skill to have.

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Instructions

- 1
  
  Prepare for the meeting by creating an agenda and circulating it to all attendees a day before the meeting is scheduled, asking them to suggest additional agenda items if they see fit. Make sure the agenda displays when the meeting is scheduled to start and finish.
- 2
  
  Start the meeting on time, even if all attendees haven't arrived yet. Many businesspeople are strapped for time and cannot afford to wait for those who are unable to keep good time.
- 3
  
  Keep to the agenda, and ensure that all discussion is relevant and to the point. Encourage all attendees to contribute to discussions, and prevent one or two members from taking over the proceedings by interjecting politely where possible to suggest input from someone else.
- 4
  
  Write down all action points that are arrived at during the meeting, and assign these actions to different members of your team. Create deadlines for the completion of these tasks to ensure that work is completed on time. You may have a minute taker to carry out this role of listing action points and resolutions for you.
- 5
  
  Conclude the meeting on time, and make a private list of aspects that you thought went well, and those which were not quite so successful. You can use this information to improve future meetings.

Tips & Warnings

Check that all attendees can open email attachments, if you are circulating the agenda via this method.
Watch out for conflict arising when clashes of opinion arise, and control the discussions to reach an amicable conclusion.

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Photo Credit Three office workers image by Vladimir Melnik from Fotolia.com

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How to Chair a Business Meeting

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