Five things to keep in mind before you end a meeting

Meetings are really just a series of conversations — an opportunity to clarify issues, set a direction, sharpen focus and move objectives forward. To maximise their impact, you need to actively design the conversation. And to ensure alignment and clarity on next steps, you have to close a conversation effectively.

Consider these five essential tasks when you’re finished with your next meeting:

1. Check for completion: If you move to the next topic too quickly, people will either cycle back to the current topic later or they will leave the meeting unclear or misaligned. You should ask: “Is there anything else someone needs to say or ask before we change topics or adjourn the meeting?”

2. Check for alignment: If someone can’t live with the decisions being made in the meeting, or the potential outcome of those decisions, you need to ask that person what it would take to get him or her on board. People prefer to be united with the group, and if they aren’t, there’s a reason behind it that needs to surface. Asking the question, “Is everyone OK with where we ended up?” will bring up questions or concerns so that they can be resolved as soon as possible.

3. Agree on next steps: Getting firm, clear commitments is the primary way to ensure progress between meetings. In order for a conversation to lead to action, specific commitments must be made.

4. Reflect on the value of what you accomplished: This is one of the most powerful acknowledgment and appreciation tools. People rarely state the value created by a conversation, and therefore lose a wonderful opportunity to validate both the conversation and the individuals in it.

5. Check for acknowledgements: Did anyone contribute to the conversation in a way that needs to be highlighted? While you don’t want to use acknowledgement and appreciation so frequently that it becomes a commodity with no value, at times someone’s questions or remarks do help provide the tipping point that turns an ordinary conversation into and extraordinary one – and that’s worth acknowledging.

– Copyright Harvard Business Review 2015