Clarifying Next Steps Before the Meeting Ends

Some best practices are so obvious they are often missed or overlooked. Or we presume they are in place when they aren’t. This is certainly the case for the practice of clarifying next steps before concluding any group meeting. 

As a rule, too many meetings end without any conclusion or clarity around the next steps to be taken as a result of the discussion. Without the closure of what steps will be taken following the meeting, teams often churn, failing to make progress on initiatives or revisiting the same issues over and over. 

What a waste of time. 

A best practice every team or group should endorse is never to end any meeting without an agreement to next steps. This is easily accomplished if whoever organizes the meeting holds the group to this standard and insists on raising the question and answering it. 

Knowing exactly who will ensure each step happens is what follows. It is common for the organizer to assign team members to the steps and then to ask them to be accountable. 

What a difference such a simple best practice can make when it is instituted and incorporated across an organization. In some workplaces, a poster with the words NEXT STEPS? is on the wall of every meeting or conference room. Reminders help with creating a new norm for the group. 

As it turns out, common sense, like clarifying next steps before concluding a meeting, is relatively uncommon. As the philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson liked to say, “Common sense is genius dressed in working clothes.” 

There’s a simple genius in clarifying next steps. Make your organization smarter by applying it.