Most interactive meetings require all team members to communicate openly about agenda items while participating in decision making and problem solving. Active participation in meetings produces better results than meetings in which people sit passively to listen and provide very little information. Often meetings will have different levels of participation from team members. Some will talk a lot while others will talk very little or not at all. For those team members who don’t interact with the group, there are some ideas a team leader can try to encourage that person and everyone else to become more involved.
- If someone provides a good suggestion or relevant information to the team leader before the meeting, ask them to do some research and then present the idea along with their data at the next meeting.
- Rotate responsibility for facilitating meetings and taking minutes so everyone understands the roles. Whenever possible, delegate different agenda items to others over multiple meetings so everyone has a chance to share and shine.
- To get everyone involved, call on different people to share their ideas, opinions, and thoughts on issues during the meeting.
- If someone isn’t actively participating, look directly at them and use their name when asking a question to encourage a response and increase their level of participation.
- Keep in mind that there is no need to rush through the entire meeting. Be patient and give people time to think and respond to the ideas presented. After a few minutes of silence, ask a question to start the discussion or see if the group wants to move on to a new agenda item.
- Create a safe and respectful environment for the open exchange of ideas and opinions. One way to do this is to never allow one person’s questions or input to be slighted: everyone can add value, including devil’s advocate.
- Take time in the meeting to praise the good work done by employees outside of the meeting. During the meeting say thank you for sharing. Appreciation makes members feel valued. Valuable people are more willing to talk and share their ideas.
- If someone seems to be dominating the meeting or discussion, don’t let it go too far. When one person takes over the meeting, other ideas are not shared and it becomes more difficult to make better decisions, as people may feel intimidated. Instead, thank the speaker for their contribution after a few minutes and then move on to the next topic or ask a more calm team member a question.
- At the end of the meeting, make sure everyone has an action item to do after the meeting. There is almost always a need to assign someone a research item before the next meeting and this gives them the opportunity to provide a report or presentation at that meeting.
- Try to understand why a person is not participating by talking to them outside of meetings. Maybe they are not really interested in being on the team or don’t see how they add value to the team. Or their low participation may be because they are not interested in a particular meeting topic or do not see how it affects them directly. Explain why they bring value to the team and what’s in it for them.
As a team leader, try some of these ideas to get individual team members to communicate more and actively participate in decision making and problem solving. More interaction is needed in meetings where better results are desired. Leaders should encourage everyone to participate in meetings and, whenever possible, try to make the distribution of participation levels more even.