How should you end a meeting so people actually follow through?
Before anyone leaves, take ninety seconds to answer three questions out loud: What did we decide? Who's doing what? By when?
What I say in the video
Most meetings end the second the clock hits the hour. People close their laptops, and half the decisions evaporate before lunch.
Before you wrap, take ninety seconds and answer three questions out loud. What did we decide? Who's doing what? By when?
If you can't answer those, the meeting isn't over. Closing that way turns conversation into action.
What I didn’t say in the video
A meeting feels productive while it's happening because the talking feels like progress. But talking and deciding are not the same thing. The energy in the room tricks everyone into thinking the work is done, when really you've only agreed on the shape of the work. The second people stand up, that shared picture starts to fall apart. Everyone walks out with a slightly different version of what happened, and nobody notices until the deadline.
Those three questions force the fuzzy stuff into the open while you're all still in the room. "What did we decide" catches the decision that felt obvious but was never actually said. "Who's doing what" catches the task that everyone assumed someone else would pick up. "By when" catches the thing that has no deadline and therefore never happens.
There's a quieter benefit too. When you close meetings this way every time, people start showing up differently. They listen for the decision instead of waiting for their turn to talk. They volunteer to own things. The ninety seconds at the end slowly changes how the whole hour runs.
Try it today
At the end of your next meeting, ask ‘By when?’ for every task that came up. A task without a deadline is just a wish.
Bill Smartt is a New York executive presence and public speaking coach and the founder of Smartt Talk. He works with leaders in financial services, tech, advertising and startups.
