Have you always wondered how to conclude a meeting? Similar to starting your meeting on a positive note, effectively concluding your meeting is imperative. While it may seem simple, there are most likely several tactics you haven’t implemented before to conclude your meetings. In this article, we’ll teach you exactly how to conclude a meeting so you can end your meeting in a way that leaves attendees feeling aligned, inspired, and ready to conquer their goals.
The importance of concluding a meeting effectively
1Fosters alignment
There’s nothing worse than ending a meeting and not knowing what’s going on. Concluding a meeting effectively will ensure you’ve successfully fostered alignment among your teammates. This means everyone will be on the same page and ready to work towards shared goals.
2Encourages follow-through and accountability
Part of concluding a meeting effectively is revisiting key talking points and action items. The practice of revisiting these sections helps foster follow-through and accountability. If you take the time to reiterate who is responsible for what after the meeting, attendees will be more likely to remain accountable.
3Increases meeting participation
It’s never too late to encourage participation, even if you’re wrapping up! Taking the time to host a Q&A or chat at the end of your meeting is a great way to get attendees talking. Not only will this boost engagement, but it will also ensure everyone in attendance has an equal opportunity to ask questions or participate in the conversation.
4Boosts morale
Effectively concluding your meeting is a great way to boost morale before your teammates leave and continue with their workday. Failing to effectively conclude your meetings may lead to confusion or feelings of discontent, which can lead to a negative workplace or employees who fail to work cohesively.
5Celebrates accomplishments
There’s nothing quite like ending a meeting on a positive note. Celebrating the wins or team accomplishments before concluding your next meeting will ensure your teammates feel energized and appreciated before wrapping up.
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10 ways to conclude a meeting effectively
1Summarize the main talking points
Every great meeting ends with a summary of the key talking points. Not only does ending with a summary of main talking points help reiterate the importance of key takeaways, but it also gives you and your teammates an opportunity to revisit action items and make sure everyone is aligned in terms of responsibilities and next steps. Leveraging Fellow’s tags feature makes it quick and easy to summarize key talking points by simply tagging sections of your meeting agenda with relevant tags that make these sections easy to source in the future. For example, if you wish to revisit team wins at the end of the meeting, consider using the tag #wins every time one of your teammates does something notable. If you wish to keep track of all key decisions, leverage the tag #decisions to be able to keep track and reference all key decisions that were made during the meeting. This simple practice will make it quick and easy to source and summarize key information before concluding your next meeting.
2Review action items
Reviewing action items before concluding a meeting is important for many reasons, with one of the most important being clarity. Taking the time to review action items with your team before wrapping up your next meeting will ensure everyone is on the same page regarding what tasks need to be completed as well as who is responsible for each task. This sense of clarity will help prevent misunderstandings and mistakes and will also keep your teammates accountable for the tasks they agreed to work on before the next meeting. This will encourage your teammates to take responsibility for their work and ensure that tasks are completed well and on time.
3Hold a Q&A session
Holding a Q&A session before concluding your meeting is a great way to make sure everyone’s aligned—this can be as simple or as complex as you’d like. To keep things simple, you can allocate the last 10-15 minutes of your meeting to answering questions. After every talking point in your agenda has been addressed, you can open the floor up to questions and encourage anyone who may have any questions to speak up. This is a great way to provide guests with the opportunity to participate in the conversation while creating a sense of clarity among attendees.
4Check for team alignment
There’s nothing worse than leaving a meeting confused. To avoid feelings of confusion or misalignment post-meeting, it’s important to check for team alignment before concluding your meetings.
“Asking the question, ‘Is everyone OK with where we ended up?’ will surface questions or concerns so they can be resolved as soon as possible.”
– Paul Axtell, Harvard Business Review.
5Reflect on what the meeting accomplished
Reflecting on what the meeting accomplished can be an incredibly impactful way to conclude your next meeting. To quote Paul Axtell from the Harvard Business Review:
“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.“
Reflecting on what the meeting accomplished is a quick and easy way to boost morale and make your teammates feel good. A simple thank you or expression of gratitude goes a long way, especially after a lengthy meeting!
6Thank meeting participants
Meetings can be incredibly draining, and employees don’t need another reason to resent them. It’s important to never underestimate the power of a simple thank you. You’ll be surprised how far a simple thank you will go, especially after your teammates have just sat through a long and daunting meeting. Thanking meeting participants for their time and contributions is a great way to express your gratitude and end your meeting on a positive note. Failing to acknowledge participants’ contributions may create a navigate environment that leads to less engagement in future meetings.
7Remind attendees of upcoming meetings
Is the meeting you’re hosting a recurring meeting? If so, it’s important to remind attendees of upcoming meetings before wrapping up. Taking the time to provide attendees with a quick reminder regarding upcoming meetings at the end of your next meeting will ensure everyone is informed and aware of upcoming gatherings. If your meeting isn’t recurring, it may suffice to simply stick to the original calendar invite.
8Ask for meeting feedback
The single greatest way to improve is to seek feedback, and asking your colleagues and teammates for their honest feedback is a great way to know if you’re hosting effective meetings. It can be as simple as sending a Slack message post-meeting or simply asking for feedback when the meeting concludes. If it’s a recurring meeting, you can ask once per quarter. If it’s a quarterly meeting, you can ask every time it takes place. Regardless, the idea is to seek feedback frequently and consistently so you can continue to improve.
Fellow makes the process of seeking feedback quick and easy with the feedback feature. With Fellow, you can incorporate feedback into your team’s day-to-day experience and track progress over time. Whether you’re asking for 360 feedback, feedback about a meeting, or feedback about something else entirely, Fellow’s prebuilt templates help you create a feedback request without overthinking the process. The best part? You can respond on the web through Fellow or directly through Slack.
9Send a meeting follow-up email
Meeting follow-up emails are a great way to make sure everyone is on the same page after the meeting has concluded. The best part about sending follow-up emails is that you’re able to loop everybody in, whether or not they were able to attend the meeting. This email is also a great opportunity to send any notes or meeting minutes to the entire group. If you’ve ended the meeting with action items, this is the ideal time to follow up and ensure everyone’s on the same page.
10Share the meeting notes ASAP
Sharing meeting notes as soon as your meeting concludes is a must—especially if you want everyone to have equal access to the information that was discussed during the meeting. While sharing your meeting notes as soon as your meeting ends is imperative, you can skip this step altogether using Fellow. When using Fellow, meeting agendas are collaborative, meaning everyone has access to all information at all times, so you can save time and centralize meeting information without taking an extra step.
Effectively conclude meetings with Fellow
What if you could streamline your meetings with one simple extension? Fellow’s Chrome extension streamlines your meetings by bringing your agenda and notes directly into your video calls. This feature connects all aspects of your meetings so you can stay focused and on track. With easy access to talking points and action items, you can efficiently manage your time and ensure that all important topics are covered before concluding your meeting.
Fellow’s 500+ meeting agenda templates are an additional resource that can help guide your meetings from beginning to end. Interested in hosting an impactful team meeting that helps celebrate wins, gather feedback, and check in on your team’s mood? Check out this meeting agenda template for a stellar framework that will help you effectively conclude any meeting.
Ready to level up your meeting game?
Congratulations, you officially know how to conclude a meeting! Taking these tips into consideration before concluding your next meeting will ensure your team is aligned and on track to reach your shared goals.
