Turn Meetings into Momentum: What Great Leaders Do After the Meeting

Your meeting may be high energy, but what happens after? Most meetings result in no ownership, no follow-through, and no deliverables. Meetings don’t move the needle. Leaders move the leader. In this episode, we’re diving into what great leaders do when the meeting ends to turn a good discussion into significant momentum.

You can have the best meetings, trainings, and keynotes, but the real impact depends on what leaders do after the event is over. There is a gap between talk and action. Talking about a problem or an initiative is just the beginning. The real work begins at the end of the meeting. Now is the time to think about how we will execute everything that we talked about. If clarity dies after the meeting, accountability dies.

Q: Describe a recent meeting you participated in. What happened in the meeting? How well was your time utilized? Did the meeting focus on vision or follow-through? Was there any follow-up? Did any action come out of the meeting? How did that meeting affect your work or your view of future meetings?

Send a concise meeting recap within 24 hours of the conclusion of the meeting

1. Highlight key decisions and action items from the meeting.

2. Determine who owns each of these items.

3. What are the due dates for each item?

4. Schedule out upcoming touchpoints to keep track of progress.

Clarity eliminates confusion. Meetings are great at creating ideas, but not ownership. Sending this email helps people understand their role in accomplishing the goals you discussed.

Follow up personally

Ensure that you connect with anyone who is an owner of one of the action items from the meeting. Use these meetings to get buy-in, identify potential concerns or roadblocks, and reinforce your support and belief in each team member.

Celebrate progress

Find wins early and often. Celebrating big and small wins will help your team gain momentum and feel appreciated.

Get feedback on the meeting

You might have really enjoyed the meeting, but you don’t get to decide if it was helpful. Find out from your team if the meeting was helpful to them. The more effective meetings are for your team, the more you will increase buy-in and follow-through.

Application Activities:

1. Before you even go into your next meeting, schedule time to follow these steps after the meeting. Within the first 24 hours, schedule an hour (or more, depending on the scope of the project or if any follow-up conversations are needed to clarify ownership) to email the team a meeting follow-up that includes the action items, person owning each action item, due dates, and follow-up dates. Within the first week, schedule time to talk to each team member about the meeting. Then, put the due dates for the action items into your calendar as a reminder to celebrate the wins! By planning ahead, you will ensure that you protect time for these important activities and decrease the likelihood of procrastinating or forgetting any of these steps.

2. Think about the structure of your current meetings. Do they produce clear action items? Is everyone in the meeting involved in the discussion? Do the action items fall on a small subset of the total number of people in the meeting? Get feedback from your team and develop a formula to help you determine who should be involved in what types of meetings to ensure everyone’s time is properly used.