How do you close your remote meetings? The closing is a crucial point of any meeting to make sure the team remains productive and engaged!
The ongoing pandemic made everything remote, including meetings. This unplanned addition to work-life was tricky for many. Remote meetings are significantly different from real-life meetings. When you close your remote meetings properly helps to keep clear communication, pick up the pace of your projects, and ensure that everyone has a good time.
A good closing is key to making your team feel accomplished, optimistic, and connected. Failure to do so can leave things left unsaid, lead to low commitment and steps not taken. In this blog post, you’ll find 5 steps you can take to close your remote meetings on a positive note every time.
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How to close your remote meetings on a positive note
1. Keep Remote Meetings Concise
Extending your remote meetings needlessly will neither meet your goals nor increase your productivity. Therefore, keep them short and concise. Before starting the video conference, set a timer for a few minutes to signal the meeting’s end. As soon as it rings, summarize the meeting.
If you feel that someone is looking to speak more, request them to send you an email, so you can raise it in the next meeting or respond to them directly.
Check out the 8 Steps to Run a Successful Meeting for preparing your meetings.
2. Maintain a Positive Environment When Closing
Recognition and praise should be a regular part of your meeting checklist. At any point, there will be at least one worker who has done something well. Letting everyone know about it will contribute to a positive and healthy work culture. You can even compliment them on their suggestions, such as “Your insights were really helpful today, David.”
At the meeting’s closing, highlight the recent positive contributions of your team. This way, you can make them feel good as they leave with a sense of achievement.
3. Close Meetings With The Next Action Steps
Many managers go over the next action steps and deadlines while closing the meeting. Instead of doing it by yourself, let your team do it. This is helpful for the following reasons:
- While they talk about their to-do lists, you can cross-reference with your notes to check if something was missed.
- It is a good opportunity to listen to them, especially note how their body language and tone changes.
Consider if their perspective matches yours as well as if they appear to have faith in the strategy. Does their body language support their statements? This allows you to do some damage control. If you feel something is amiss, you check in with them after a few days. Maybe all they needed was some motivation. Or perhaps there was some development you were unaware of.
4. Redirect a Pointless Remote Meeting
As someone who has participated in countless meetings, you know how pointless some of them can get. These meetings can have a surprisingly high number of pointless conversations. At one point, you are left to wonder whether an email was a better option to circulate the core message.
If you don’t want this state of affairs to repeat in your remote meeting, end each conversation as soon as possible. Next, ask your team members to take some time and think about the pressing matters that need to be discussed further.
List down their ideas and set them as the next remote meeting’s agenda. You can also join them on a one-to-one remote meeting after the session and discuss it in detail. This also allows you to earn the trust of your team members and make them feel valued.
For more tips on video conferencing, check out our free Quick Guide to Video Conferencing!
5. Schedule Follow-Up Plans
Before the meeting ends, make preparations for the future. Whether it is an email follow-up or another meeting itself, use it to track progress and ensure that every attendee knows about the next point of contact.
Final Thoughts
Knowing how to close your remote meetings effectively is vital. Follow the tips mentioned above to close your remote meetings on a positive note so that your team can look forward to the next meeting, stay connected to the project, and work better than ever.
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