HBR Guide to Making Every Meeting Matter (HBR Guide Series)

CHAPTER 22

Don’t End a Meeting Without Doing These 3 Things

by Bob Frisch and Cary Greene

When a sports team finishes a game, they usually don’t gather up their gear and immediately leave the court, rink, field, or locker room. The players and coaches take a few minutes for a post-game meeting—a ritual that’s just as important as the pre-game warm-up.

Meeting participants can benefit from the same exercise. A quick wrap-up discussion before attendees leave the room goes a long way toward ensuring the gathering achieved what it set out to do and that future gettogethers will also prove successful. Here are three steps to take at the end of each meeting (though you can, of course, dial up or down each component as the situation warrants). Once ...