If you’ve just recently started to take on more responsibilities at work, be it that you’ve been given a promotion or you’re growing into a more senior role at your company, you may be starting to do things that you haven’t done in the past. So if you’re slated to run your first meeting for people within your company, the prospect of doing this might be very intimidating for you. Luckily, there are things you can do to help make this easier for yourself.
To help you see how this can be done, here are three tips for running your first meeting at work.
Know What Your Goals For The Meeting Are
The last thing you want people to think as they are heading into your meeting is that this is just going to be a waste of their time. But sadly, many meetings are. So to make sure that this isn’t the case for your meeting, you’ll want to have some clear goals in mind for why you’re holding this meeting and what you want this meeting to accomplish.
With the right goals in mind, you’ll be able to keep your meeting on track and ensure that you cover everything that you need to. Otherwise, it can be very easy for you to lose control of the room and have people wind up talking about things that aren’t relevant to the point of your meeting.
Prep The Meeting Space Correctly
Something else that you’ll want to do as you prepare for being in charge at your first meeting is that the space in which you’re meeting is suited to meet your needs.
Ideally, you should have your meeting space set up so that there’s room for everyone. Additionally, if you’re going to be using any kind of visuals, you’ll want to be sure that the room is equipped for you to show those visuals in the way you intended, be it on a board or through some kind of projector. And if you’re going through the trouble of creating visuals, you’ll want to make sure that everyone can comfortably see them, too.
Use Your Time Effectively
Once your meeting gets started, it can be easy for you to lose track of what you’re saying and doing. To keep this from happening to you, you’ll want to come up with some way for you to stay on schedule as you use your time effectively.
To do this, try spending the last few minutes of the meeting wrapping up what you talked about and what action plan people should take from the meeting. This will ensure that everyone has a clear take-away from your meeting and that any follow-up that needs to get done is properly delegated.
If you’re going to be running your first work meeting soon, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you get ready for this milestone.