The Association Blog

How has the pandemic changed the way your organization communicates internally? We’re betting one change is virtual meetings—and lots of them. How are these meetings conducted—and what’s successful/not-so-successful about them? Jack Flinchum will explore these questions in his September 30 webinar, “Effective Internal Communication: The Problem, Some Solutions & The (Virtual) Meeting.” We checked in with him for a sneak preview of the expert info he’ll be sharing. You can register for his upcoming session, and chew on these tips in the meantime.

Tip #1 – Frame the Agenda as Questions 

Agendas are important for meeting success, but many are recycled or not used as effectively as they could be. One way to mitigate these problems is by framing the agenda as a list of questions. Not only will this streamline the meeting, but you will know when the meeting is done when all of the questions are answered. 

Tip #2 – Call Out Individuals for Input 

Virtual meetings make a good meeting leader more important than ever. One way to help engage virtual meeting attendees is to call out attendees individually for their thoughts. Asking all attendees for input at once usually ends in silence (or hearing the same few contributors), while asking one individual affords them the spotlight to respond. 

Tip #3 – Establish Directly Responsible Individuals (DRIs) 

Meetings should end with an outline of key takeaways from what was accomplished, and also set up a path for moving forward. Establish the directly responsible individual (DRI) for each task before the next meeting. In the next meeting, the meeting leader can quickly follow up with each DRI to hear about their status updates. 

Learn More

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