Business professionals should be prepared to perform effective business meetings. These meetings could happen on any kind of business establishments, including retail companies, product manufacturers, sporting clubs and even non profit foundations. Here are things we should prepare before starting a business meeting.
- Send out meeting agenda: If we plan to invite stakeholders to business meeting, we should send agenda, so they can be fully prepared. There’s no point of starting a business meeting if all the participants don’t have a clue on what they should do. The agenda should explain everything in great details, including all the matters that should be discussed.
- Appoint a meeting chairman: In many cases, the chairman is usually the most senior member of the company. However, larger corporations usually already have their own Chairman of the Board, so we already know how will become the chairman of the meeting. Board members usually have significant experience about the industry, so they should have full involvement during the meeting. However, we may also pass the role to other people, so they can share the experience of being chairman during the meeting.
- Appoint a secretary: Secretary is essential during a meeting, because they can keep notes of the items being discussed, such as the motions being proposed or voted on. Whether the motion is approved or lost, the secretary should make sure that he/she has records of the result. A good secretary will also record items related to the motion and they will note the action. The person is responsible of making sure that all the information is recorded and shared later to the attendees.
- Prepare motions: Business meeting should include all the necessary motions. Procedural motions are related to formal meeting process that are related to the review of previous meetings, time for speaking against or for motions and things related to the closure of the meeting. Substantive meeting is related to ordering specific things to be done. All motions should be made in positive sentences and verbs are typically in the subjunctive mood.
- Prepare voting on motions: There should be party that presents the motion and often there are also parties that oppose the motion, although this isn’t always the case. During a business meeting, the proposer of the motion should be given the right to provide a reply or a final reply during the next business meeting. In many cases, the motion is put to a vote, with the assenting party saying the yes vote and the nay vote for the opposing party. The chairman will announce whether the vote is won or not. However, there are many cases when the motions are fully agreed by all parties involved.
Business meeting is an essential part for any large corporations that have large groups of boards and investors. It is possible to define many plans actions that can make sure specific goals are achieved. We should make sure that all parties are fully prepared during the meeting to achieve better results in the end.