Company management meetings are an event that is inevitable in the life of every enterprise. However, with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, such meetings had to be moved online. Since then, interest in board portals has increased significantly. These unique programs help conduct online meetings with all offline functionality. Here you can vote similarly, approve decisions of the board of directors, and so on. The tips below will help you make the meeting of managers as effective as possible using the software.
How do you moderate a meeting?
Board portals have a lot of settings to make the meeting as comfortable as possible, even before it starts. For example, you can set the rights of participants and fix the rules in the electronic regulations of the meeting.
During the meeting, start by introducing the participants to each other, formulate the main questions and start a discussion. If you designate yourself as a moderator from the minute people enter the virtual meeting room, they will act like guests and treat you with respect.
Listen and reflect
The main task of the facilitator is to help other participants communicate. If someone says something thoughtless (though not without value), help them develop the idea. Try to rephrase what you said. This allows you to finalize the thought and show everyone how to make the discussion a joint, cohesive action. However, try not to defend your opinions – it isn’t easy to maintain a conversation if you pursue personal interests. To avoid a farce at the meeting, set up the ability to “raise your hand” for the online meeting participants.
Guide the Discussion
Guided by the meeting agenda (which should ideally be sent out a few days in advance to all participants), do not let the discussion veer off-topic. Be flexible and let people have their say, but if the discussion is heading south while the agenda for the meeting calls for it to go west, then action must be taken.
Politely interrupt the conversation, point to the meeting agenda, and ask them to postpone discussion of the topic until the issues you are here are resolved (or suggest adjusting the meeting agenda if the new case is worth it). Do not forget that you, as a moderator, have maximum rights to regulate the communication of meeting participants. But resorting to “crude” methods, such as muting the sound or exclusion from the virtual room, is only a last resort.
End the discussion correctly
It would help if you determined for yourself at what point you should end the discussion of the problem. It is often enough to formulate a concern, ask a specific person to work it out on their own, and then get together tomorrow or another day and discuss the solution. This is a great way to end the debate taking over the meetings.
Ideally, your meeting should end with the signing of a resolution. You can do this in the board portal using a digital signature.
Save the results of negotiations
If your board portal program allows you to keep meeting minutes, enable this feature. This will allow you to keep track of where you are on the agenda and communicate this to the audience. In addition, it will be easier for you to track whether the participants are following the plan you have chosen, as well as to check in the future what issues were raised at a particular meeting.