Talaera Talks - Business English Communication

52. 3 Key Elements To Close A Meeting Effectively - Talaera Bits

June 13, 2022 Talaera Business English Communications Training Episode 52
Talaera Talks - Business English Communication
52. 3 Key Elements To Close A Meeting Effectively - Talaera Bits
Show Notes Transcript

As you may already know, strong openings are key to productive meetings. But so are closings! Knowing how to end a meeting will help you make sure everyone is on the same page, clarify action items, and get everyone excited about the next steps. In this episode, we show you three key elements you should include to close a meeting effectively.

Read the notes and additional phrases: https://blog.talaera.com/close-meeting
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Intro
Welcome to Talaera Talks, the business English communication podcast for non-native professionals. My name is Paola and I am co-hosting this show with Simon. In this podcast, we're going to be covering communication advice and tips to help express yourself with confidence in English in professional settings. So we hope you enjoy the show!

Simon Kennell 0:24
Welcome back, everyone, for another Talaera Bit. My name is Simon. And as always, I hope weherever you are you're having a great day.

Simon Kennell 0:36
So today is the second part of a previous Talaera Bit that I recorded about opening meetings. Today, we're going to do the closing section. So how do we end meetings? Well, if you go back to the previous episode, where we talked about opening meetings, the big points that I focused on were clarity, organization and action items. Well, it's pretty much very similar in the ending a meeting section actually. If we look at what our goals for ending a meeting are, they really come down to clarity. So everybody is clear on what needs to happen. Action Items, what are the specific items that I need to do after this meeting is over. And then we want to leave the team with some energy with some motivation, we want to leave on a positive note, you can say. So we always want to leave a meeting, end the meeting on a positive note. So we're going to go over these three sections clarity, action items, and energy. How do we do this? Well, when we're talking about clarity, we coming to the end of the meeting, right? We want to summarize, and there's a couple of phrases we can use to do that. Okay, everyone, we're coming to the end of the meeting. Now, to wrap up, we covered the big three points about the marketing project for next quarter. And as well, we went over the sales figures for the last month. Okay, so that phrase I use there, to wrap up, we covered XY and Z, you can also use something like this.

Simon Kennell 2:29
It's getting close on time, everyone. So let's put a pin in it here. And then we'll end it for today. Just to summarize, we covered X, Y, and Z. Okay, so I use the phrase, it's getting close on time, which means it's getting close to the end of our time. Let's put a pin in this here. So that means let's pause here. Let's, let's stop here for now. And we'll come back to the discussion that we're having at our next meeting. Still, if you use this, you want to summarize. Now after summarizing, we want to get into our action items, and action items or the specific items that we give to people right or the agreements that we've made. So this is usually specific people with due dates. So those are the two, John will do x by next meeting, which is in two weeks. Right? So this is the the big points. So we can say something like this. So as we discussed, James, you'll take this marketing task. And Hannah, you said that you'll be able to work on the other section. We're all on the same page here, right? Okay, so I'm using a lot of we, as we discussed, James, you'll take the marketing task. And Hannah, we discussed that you'll work on the other section. Are we all in agreement here? So we want to leave it that there's a very clear agreement, James and Hannah both say yes.

Simon Kennell 4:06
And now we want to specify the time. And as we discussed, we want to have this in time for our next meeting two weeks from today, right? Again, we're looking for them to give that yes, that attendee that yes, that it's going to be done within two weeks. And then as well with action items, you want to offer your help if needed. Well, listen, my door is always open. If you need help on this, just let me know. Okay. So that expression, my door is always open. If you need help on this, just let me know.

Simon Kennell 4:43
Now, finally, we want to end with energy. We've summarized the main points the main ingredients of our meeting today, we've discussed specific action items that we want to take, and we talked about who will do these points and

Simon Kennell 5:00
When they will be done. And now we want to get to the energy we want to leave on a good note. So one way you can do this is if you have any acknowledgments that good things that happened throughout the meetings or great points that were brought up, you want to specifically add not acknowledged those. And this is a great part to, to really push that employee appreciation that we've talked about recently. So you could say something like, James, by the way, I just want to say a big thank you for making that point about the marketing task and and the importance with that. So great job, Hannah, really good job. With the presentation today. I thought the figures were awesome.

Simon Kennell 5:42
That's it for today. A great meeting today, everyone. Thank you. I think we covered really a lot of important items. So thank you all and have a great weekend. Okay, so I used some acknowledgments. They're very specific, talked about what I really liked. And I said, All right, great meeting today, everyone, we covered a lot of important items. So it gives that good feeling that we've made some progress. Thank you all and have a great weekend. Now you can also rephrase it to give an opportunity if there are any other suggestions. So you can say something like, great meeting today, everyone, I think we covered a lot of really important items. Before we wrap up. Is there anything anybody else wanted to discuss? No. Okay, great. Thank you all and have a great weekend. Okay, so then we wrapped it up really nice with some good energy. And we thank everybody for their time. So to wrap up, I'm wrapping up our podcast here today, we talked about clarity, right. So using expressions to summarize big topics and agreements. To wrap up, let's put a pin in it here. We talked about action items, we want to be very, very clear on the specific things that people will do the individuals, and when they will get them done by and we want to ensure that everybody is agreed on this, as well. You want to offer your help with their and then with energy, right, we want to end on a great note. So we want to acknowledge and give some appreciation to anybody that's really showed something very nice in the meeting or something earlier, perhaps, and then ending with a nice send off message. Have a great weekend. Have a great week. We'll see you at our next meeting in two weeks. Okay, so as always, take these notes, you know, practice them and your next meeting, if you're leading a meeting, the important points really are clarity, action items, and that good energy to leave a meeting on a positive note. So that is it for me today. As always, I hope wherever you are, you have a great rest of your day. Remember to use these and practice, practice, practice and as always, keep learning.

8:10
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