Believe it or not, one of the best secrets I’ve uncovered for effective meetings is setting ground rules upfront.  I came across this while participating in a meeting with a non-profit, advocacy group.  In a setting like this, where there may be no formal reporting relationships or minimal consequences to “bad” behavior, ground rules are like a magic potion. They offer a set of boundaries other participants can leverage when things veer off course. One of the meetings where ground rules are typically established upfront are brainstorming meetings. The facilitator almost always sets and visibly posts a few ground rules upfront — but what about other meetings. Ground rules can be effective there to. It is important to consider what problems you may have run into in the past that you would like to alleviate when establishing the rules.

1) A common problem is having a few people dominate the meeting. In this instance you might establish a “step up, step back” rule. This rule can be leveraged to help a dominant personality step back, and it can help a quiet observer become a participant.

2) Do you find that some people are prone to” idea bashing” – they have no constructive solutions to offer, only critique. You might think of establishing a “Constructive feedback only rule”.

3) Do you have a manager that is prone to “bullying”? Think about establishing a “no bullying rule”, or at a minimum a “respect” rule.

4) Does your group tend to go off topic? You might have each person pay $1 into a kitty, every time they veer off topic, with the money being spent on snacks for the meeting.

The bottom line is, there are tons of creative solutions for every meeting issue. The important thing is to get buy-in from your group members, up front, and hit the ground running with the ground rules.