Ideally, your company meetings offer an opportunity for a valuable exchange of ideas between leaders and employees, with plenty of time to discuss the issues that are impeding the company's progress and lots of actionable suggestions that will resolve these problems quickly and efficiently.
In reality, company meetings are rarely that idyllic. You get people who are disengaged, discreetly checking their email on their smartphones, looking up only when asked a direct question.
Then, there are the people who take control of the meeting and drone on about issues that could be easily resolved with a single email. Or people who are more focused on assigning blame about a project gone wrong than finding a solution that would set things right again. When the meeting's over, you find yourself wondering why you bothered attending in the first place.
What are some of the red flags that indicate that your company meetings are inefficient, and how can you overcome them?
Red Flag #1: Lack of Preparedness
If you've ever been in a meeting and found that one or more of the participants weren't prepared to discuss the topic at hand, you've felt the frustration and irritation that comes with having your time wasted. Waiting for anyone, whether it's the meeting's leader or one of the participants, to find the information they want to share is inefficient at best, and definitely disrespectful of everyone's valuable time.
This is where a tool like EON shines. It acts as a central repository for all of the work associated with a project. Everyone involved has access to all the information at all times, which means you won't have to wait as someone fumbles through their papers to find the data required to answer questions. It's also a time-saver for the person running the meeting; they won't have to spend valuable hours preparing an elaborate presentation to show the team information that's easily accessible through EON.
Red Flag #2: Outdated Information
If you're in a meeting and you hear someone presenting information about a project, but you're confident that the presentation is not based on the most current data available, you're going to start mentally composing your grocery list rather than listening attentively to what they have to say.
Business moves fast. Information can change from hour to hour, and when you're expected to create an elaborate presentation for a meeting, you're forced to use the data that's available when you have time to design the slides rather than the data that's available at the time of the meeting. In order to ensure that everyone's working with the most current data, it pays to use a platform that will have the up-to-the-minute information available at everyone's fingertips.
Red Flag #3: Lack of Action
When you leave a company meeting, are you energized and ready to take action to complete the steps you outlined during your discussion, or do you walk out of the room wondering what you're supposed to do now?
EON offers a platform for teams to input actions that should be taken to get to the next stage of a project. There, you can utilize the Visualization feature within a Strategy to outline the steps that the team needs to take to achieve desired results. Everyone will have access to all the information necessary to complete their tasks, and you can flag issues that need additional discussion with the team.