How to run an effective strategic meeting

5 tips for running a strategic meeting effectively. Regardless of the type of working team, these tips can help you run strategic meetings effectively.

In general, strategic meetings are used to generate and encourage new ideas, but if properly run, can produce benefits that go beyond creation. In fact, a well-structured strategic meeting can boost the group morale, foster creative thinking, and gather a wealth of diverse ideas.

These 5 tips will help you run a strategic meeting effectively to achieve your goals

Allow people to get prepared
Creativity is not a sudden outcome, so make sure the topic is clear in advance and give the team time to prepare. Make sure you state per email the topic or the problem that needs solution as early as possible, so that the team can start coming up with their own ideas. This means that sending out the email only a day before the meeting does not allow enough time to get the creativity flowing.
Set a clear direction
Are you aiming at generating brand-new ideas or are you simply looking for a solution? Make sure your team is fully aware of the objective of the meeting.
Invite new people
If the same team brainstorms every week or month, ideas can become monotonous and group creativity can start to flatten out, so make sure you invite to the meeting also people with different backgrounds and experiences.
Encourage an inclusive and supportive approach
“No bad ideas” has become lately a buzzword for meetings: if someone’s idea is dismissed quickly, they are less likely to feel confident to share the next one.
Set the adequate timeframe
A meeting aims at achieving a goal, so make sure you have plenty of time to narrow down ideas and pursue some of them in a structured way.

These tips for running a strategic meeting will help you achieve maximum efficiency; if you need an extra boost of creativity, check out these 6 brainstorming techniques for teams.

In the Beetroot team we successfully apply these tips to our projects, such as Beetcommunity, which is a physical and virtual space designed for sharing and implementing ideas.