More meetings aren’t the answer. Delayed meetings make it worse. If you are suffering from the wild west of meeting fatigue, you need to start setting some boundaries and establishing expectations with your team. Otherwise, productivity will suffer, morale will decline, and engagement will sink as you try to rally the team to work towards a common goal.
It’s important to establish some explicit rules, and not rely upon implicit norms.
Example implicit rules include:
- Join on or anytime after the meeting start time.
- No meeting agenda established with clear objectives.
- The webcam is optional.
- Jump in the conversation without being acknowledged by the host.
- We can troubleshoot the technology as we go.
Example of explicit rules include:
Be ready 10 minutes prior to meeting start.
- Confirm the agenda with the team before the meeting starts.
- Confirm webcam is functional and ready to use.
- Place yourself on mute at all times unless speaking.
- Disable all notifications on the desktop computer, tablet, smartphones during meetings.
- Reinforce guidelines on what is acceptable to be shared on screen.
