“Business meetings are at the heart of an effective organization, and each meeting is an opportunity to clarify issues, set new directions, sharpen focus, create alignment, and move objectives forward.”

Paul Axtell, Meetings Matter: 8 Powerful Strategies for Remarkable Conversations

Paul is right, you know!

Business meetings are vitally important. If done well, they prove as an opportunity to make team members feel more included and let them contribute to the success of the organization. 

However, host too many business meetings and people lose the whole point behind them working together – or working in general. 

An overview of business meeting cultures

If you are a part of a team or an organization, here’s what you probably already know or have heard: 

• 70% of business meetings we host or join start without any clarity of objective and end without any clear conclusion. 
• Only 30% of business meetings have been successful.  
• 65% of senior managers said meetings keep them from completing their own work.
• 71% of senior managers and participants said business meetings are unproductive and inefficient. 
• 62% of senior managers said meetings miss opportunities to bring the team closer together.

(Source: HBR)

Again, meetings are important. The problem is that we still don’t know what type of meeting to use when. As a matter of fact, most of you didn’t even know that business meetings have types.

I guessed that right, didn’t I? 

Well, don’t worry. It’s never too late to learn something new, especially in the world of business. 

Read on to find out all about different types of business meetings and ways for running them productively and effectively. 

What are the types of business meetings?

Mentioned below are some of the best types of business meetings everyone needs. 

Brainstorming meetings 

Businesses are driven by new, unique ideas. That means if you want your business to be successful, you need to keep the ideas flowing – for which you will need brainstorming meetings. These are the types of business meetings where everyone is invited to contribute ideas and set goals for the near future. Remember, the key focus of these meetings is ideas, not the outcome. 

Kickoff meetings

Once you have agreed on some idea and planning on rolling out a new project based on that idea, you invite everyone involved for a kickoff meeting. The purpose of this meeting is to let team members know about what they will be working on and what is expected of them. This type of meeting is particularly important because this is where teams are made excited and enthusiastic about whatever is going on.

Retrospective meetings

Not every project goes as you plan. This is why you need retrospective meetings or feedback sharing meetings. These are the types of meetings where you want everyone in the team to really learn from their experience. These meetings are a great way to help people come forward to talk about what went well, what didn’t work as expected, and what they should do differently for the upcoming projects. 

Financial decision-making meetings 

Money is a crucial part of running a business. That is why it is important to host regular financial decision-making meetings. These are basic types of meetings where you decide “How much money you’re going to spend?”, “What the money is being spent on?”, “What kind of return you can expect on your investment?”, etc. keeping everyone on the same page in financial and budget-related matters helps to keep things under control in the long term. 

On-boarding meetings 

When you hire someone new, that person must be able to feel like a part of your team, and onboarding meetings are the best way to ensure that it happens. Onboarding meetings are where your new team members learn about the organization’s structure and their respective roles in the long term. 

What are the techniques in making business meetings productive?

Now that you know the different types of business meetings and their respective objectives, let’s explore ways to host business meetings that are effective and productive. Here are some common ways that you will help you make your meetings better.

• Start meetings on time and set strict time limits 
• Share meeting agenda ahead of time so that everyone comes prepared 
• Keep the headcount low as too many participants are often hard to manage 
• Decide on concrete after-meeting steps and make sure everyone is on board
• Don’t hold too many status updates or follow up meetings. 

Or, you can simply use TelebuJoin. 

Yeah, that’s right. TelebuJoin is an intelligently designed app that helps you host virtual conferences, webinars, and events in the most interactive and engaging way, from anywhere. 

Can TelebuJoin improve your business meetings?

Yes, indeed!

TelebuJoin has a lot to offer to make your business meetings better – no matter the type. In fact, we, at Telebu, designed this video conferencing app to make our own meetings more meaningful – and it worked!

We now use TelebuJoin on an everyday basis for various virtual communication purposes, including virtual interviews, morning team rallies, LIVE webinars, online onboarding, team training sessions, Saturday team activities, and much more. 

In the business world, you often think that “the more meetings, the better the productivity”. But, trust me! It doesn’t work like that. At Telebu, we learned from our mistake and designed a TelebuJoin to help us maintain that balance between productive business meetings and productivity in general. 

Here are some of the features that make TelebuJoin stand out in today’s market:

• No downloads required

With TelebuJoin, people can host and join meetings without downloading the app. Just Login here, generate and share the meeting URL, and it’s done. 

• Hand Raise 

Hand raise feature in TelebuJoin allows participants of a meeting or LIVE webinar to raise requests to ask a question without interrupting an ongoing discussion. 

• Screen Share and Real-time chat

This one is a bit obvious, TelebuJoin allows participants to share text messages, files, etc during the session. However, the data security of TelebuJoin is better than most conferencing and communication apps available today. 

• Advanced controls and analytics 

TelebuJoin offers in-built analytics and controls that allow the host of the meeting to stay in control and keep the meeting going as smoothly as possible. 

There you go! 

This is my take on the types of business meetings we have in a work environment and ways in which we can run those business meetings more effectively. 

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