The Best 12 Meeting Ground Rules for Business Meetings

Meeting ground rules are important for the three reasons mentioned at the bottom of this article. The question is, what should they be and the reasons for it. Below are the twelve meeting ground rules to get the most out of your business meetings. There are three additional ground rules specifically for virtual meetings. As they are the norm in most if not all businesses today.

Here are the 12 Meeting Ground Rules for Greater Productivity in Business Meetings:

1. Respect

Mention the value of respect in all its meanings and perspectives to get the most out of your business meetings. That means respecting each others’ viewpoints as they are personal experiences. Mention that the company has allowed or organized the meeting to resolve a problem and or improve the current situation.

Your group should respect the responsibility. The meeting is an expense, and the team must understand that there is a meeting cost. Respect also means active listening to understand what participants are saying. Even if someone in your meeting disagrees with a suggestion, viewpoint, or comment. It’s important to respect the fact that it takes courage to say it to the group.

2. Do not dominate a topic

The more people in a group meeting the greater the probability of opposing views and agendas. Some may have the propensity to give long speeches drowning out other voices as they run the clock. This is not respectful and should be avoided.

It is a good idea to have a timekeeper in your meetings to ensure that this type doesn’t take place. People should be concise in their thoughts and avoid being verbose.

3. No raising of voices

In meetings where there are competing ideas, thoughts, and personal agendas, the raising of voices may occur. It is important to remind people in your meetings that different views are expected and important and the any final decisions will be made when everyone has been heard.

Snarky sarcasm should be avoided, and a respectful tone is the proper way to conduct yourself in a meeting.

Remind everyone to stay on topic. Your group meetings may have attendees who want to raise a different topic than the one the meeting is about. Everyone should be reminded that the meeting is for the meeting purpose.

4. Stay on topic

All side discussions are to be done privately or at another time. Do not allow the high-jacking of your meetings with personal gripes and agendas. It’s unprofessional for anyone to raise discussions that are not directly related to the topic.

5. Do not interrupt

Heated discussions and viewpoints have a tendency to create interruptions. Address disruptions upfront especially if you suspect that your participants have passionate views on a specific topic. Do this as part of your ground rules for the meeting.

Mention that everyone’s thoughts are valuable and that interruptions are to be avoided. Always allow people to finish their thoughts. People in your meeting are there because they can contribute to the purpose of the meeting. Everyone should respect their contributions to the topic.

6. Awareness of time

Have everyone in your meeting be aware of the time and the agenda to have a productive meeting. There sometimes is an inclination to debate and be long-winded without adding value.

It is important for everyone in your meeting to understand that it is costly to hold meetings and therefore participants should keep comments with no value to themselves. This way the agenda is met, and the purpose of the meeting is achieved.

7. Personal electronic devices

One of the most negative impacting elements in meetings today is the usage of smartphones during meetings. People will try to hide their smartphone usage. They will place their phone under the table so that no one can see what their doing. The problem is everyone knows what is happening and it is a disruptive behavior in meetings.

Have everyone understand that their attention and engagement are necessary to address the meetings’ purpose. All cellphones should be placed in an area or basket somewhere in the meeting room during your meeting. Institute a break after one hour. Especially if it is a long meeting. Your participants can have a washroom break, and check their phones at that time.

8. Side discussion distractions

You should discourage people making comments to someone beside them when meeting participants are speaking. This is a behavior that is a distraction to the group and the person speaking at the time. Remind everyone at your meeting that this type of behavior is not respectable to the person speaking.

If a comment cannot be made to the group it should wait until after the meeting. At that time the person can mention whatever it is that they feel necessary.

9. Breaks

Your meeting participants should know when breaks are scheduled, especially in long meetings. This minimizes people leaving in the middle of the meeting as people may be able to wait until the break. Having participants leaving the meeting is interruptive and should be minimized as much as possible.

When someone leaves a meeting for even five minutes they may miss the opportunity to provide valuable insights into the discussion being had at the time. Providing meeting breaks information will help you minimize these types of distractions in your meetings.

10. Active Engagement

Mention to all participants that active engagement and focus is necessary to achieve the meeting objective. Without active engagement a meeting will be longer than it needs to be leading to wastage of company resources.

An active listening posture is encouraged as it also tells everyone in your meeting group that they are interested in what is being said or presented.

11. No personal attacks

Meetings with personnel that may not like one another can and often happen. It is important to remind people to attack the problem, idea, or presented arguments. It’s most important to do so in a polite way but never the person.

Doing so will prevent others in the group from presenting their viewpoints too strongly to the point of being rude. It will have a negative impact as people will not readily share their thoughts.

Advise everyone in the meeting to understand that without all participants engagement will lead to a solution or improvement that may not be as robust as it should be.

12. Decision making process

It is important for participants in your group to understand how decisions will be made. You may want to listen to everyone’s arguments and suggestions and then make the decision.

The alternative is to have the group make decisions by majority or consensus. Decide on the one that is appropriate for your meeting and advise meeting participants how decisions will be made.

Additional Virtual Meeting Ground Rules

Many business meetings are done today by video conferencing. The same ground rules apply to these types of meetings although some of the rules are more difficult to apply. It’s hard to apply the personal smartphone ground rule to someone that you can only partially see on screen.

It should be mentioned though to get the most out of the meeting. The following three ground rules should be mentioned to virtual meeting participants:

1. Camera on at all times

It is important that you mention to your participants that all meetings be one with the camera on. Let them know when the meeting invitation is sent. This provides you with the knowledge whether the person on the other side of the camera is actively listening and engaged.

Words account for about 7% of communication while tone is about 33% and body language makes up the rest. Not seeing someone’s body language may only tell you half of what is going on. This is valuable information for you, and this ground rule is an important one have in your virtual meetings.

2. Microphone on always

Another ground rule to mention to your virtual meeting participants is that the microphone is to be on at all times. Again, this is to make sure that everyone is engaged and not doing something else while in the meeting.

You certainly don’t want people watching TikTok or YouTube videos while they’re in your meeting.

3. Distraction-free location

An important ground rule to have for your virtual meetings is to ask all participants to be in a distraction-free area.

Preferably in a private location so that surrounding personnel don’t hear the groups’ discussions and details being shared. This is a ground rule that you must mention in the meeting invite.

Who Am I to Provide Advice?

Im a business consultant with more than thirty years of assisting businesses of all sizes reach their next level of success. This includes helping businesses be more productive and efficient in their operations. Meeting productivity is one such area that all companies need assistance with.

This is because there usually is no training provided to staff. This experience provides me with a wealth of knowledge. My hope is that you receive the benefit of my experienced get the most out of your meetings through this and other articles I have written on this subject.

Insider Tip

Once you have informed everyone of the ground rules go one step further. Take proper meeting minutes with a meeting journal. The journal will have blank spaces for all the details you should have as written record of the meeting.

It will provide you with the added benefit of having all your meetings in one centralized location. The meeting journal that I recommend is the Konnect Meeting Minutes Journal because of its many features that other meeting journals do not have.

This includes an easy referencing system to locate your meetings quickly and easily. A separate location for all your meeting action items. This means that you don’t have to locate a meeting to find the action items that should be followed up unless you want further information on the specific meeting.

It also has all the meeting minute details you would want from the most casual of meetings to company board meetings.

Are Meeting Ground Rules Necessary?

Ground rules are necessary because you cannot assume that proper behaviors are going to be demonstrated by all meeting participants. This is especially true when you are discussing high anxiety and stressful topics. This is more so when there are strong opposing views or personalities.

Companies in general do not train their staff on how to create the environment to have productive meetings. The result is what may be accepted in one company is not in another. The meeting ground rules reminds all participants that there is a correct way of participating and engaging with each other.

Meeting ground rules are extremely important for the following 3 reasons:

Personal relationships

Relationships and team cohesiveness is important to maintain among company colleagues. After all a company is a group of people working together for a common goal to satisfy the customer.

Allowing meeting chaos in your meetings may damage working relationships. You will not get the most out of your people.

Productivity

Your meeting will not be as productive without the ground rules mentioned above. Implementing these ground rules will assist you in achieving the outcomes you want in as little time as possible.

Personal rants, distractive behaviors, and more could occur leading to unproductive meetings and the wasting of company resources.

Teamwork

Institute good meeting behaviors which is what meeting ground rules provides. It’s a necessary component of providing the best environment for teamwork.

When people work together is when the best outcomes are achieved. Your ground rules are a necessary component for this to happen.

Conclusion

Do not assume that people in your meetings know how to behave properly. As everyone comes with different standards from their experiences and not proper meeting training.

Implement the the ground rules mentioned in this article.

This will provide you with the foundation to have productive and efficient business meetings. They will also be welcomed instead of being dreaded.