Indra Nooyi on Effective Meetings: Tips on How to Run Meetings

Born in India, Indra Nooyi made her way to the United States in 1978 to study at the Yale School of Management. Shortly after receiving her master’s degree in public and private management, she joined the Boston Consulting Group before making a pivot to Motorola as a VP and director of corporate strategy and planning.

In 1994, she joined PepsiCo as the senior VP of corporate strategy and development. She moved up the ranks to serve as CEO beginning in 2006. During her time helming the company, she oversaw numerous important mergers and acquisitions and strategic shifts, as well as a drive toward increased sustainability.

Regular meetings are an essential component of most organizations engaging in in-person, remote, or hybrid work. These three elements are some of the essential components to leading a good meeting:

1. 1. Key stakeholders: Your team meeting participants should all have a distinct role to play in decision-making when it comes to project management. This way, even if you lead the meeting in an open forum format, everyone will have something of value and importance to contribute.
2. 2. Specific goals: To hold a productive meeting, you’ll need to clarify your goals ahead of time. Define the meeting’s purpose beforehand as well. For example, if you want to have a brainstorming session, encourage a free flow of conversation. Alternatively, if you need to define key performance indicators (KPIs) for a specific project, try to take a more direct approach.
3. 3. Time management: Decide on a meeting length ahead of time and stick to it. This encourages everyone to follow the ground rules and maintain an efficient flow of conversation. Of course, if you’re having a particularly great meeting, feel free to go over the allotted time if no one has anything more pressing to do.

Unproductive meetings are easy to avoid when you have a concrete action plan. Here are seven helpful tips from former business executive Indra Nooyi about how to lead an effective meeting:

1. 1. Craft a clear purpose. By establishing the purpose of a meeting, you make it easy for everyone to stay on task in real time. “Every meeting should have a clear purpose,” Indra says. “Why are you meeting? Is the objective to exchange information? Is it to make a decision? What’s the topic on which you need to make a decision?” Without a clear goal, it could be easy to drift off topic or become unproductive.
2. 2. Create a one-page agenda. Put together a succinct list of meeting agenda items beforehand to give your get-together some structure. “It would be nice if anybody who calls a meeting has one page which says, ‘What’s the meeting for? What kind of decisions are being expected to come out of this meeting?’” Indra says. This sort of template can help keep you on track.
3. 3. Invite the right people. When setting up a meeting, try to invite only the team members who must attend. “Are all the key people who need to be in the meeting there?” asks Indra. “And do you have people who don't need to be in the meeting who are in the meeting?” After you decide on the type of meeting you plan to hold, make a list of all the people who must be in the room for an effective and productive conversation.
4. 4. Make space for contributions. Sometimes people might be too shy to share valuable input at first. “At the end of the meeting,” Indra says, “the person who is at the head of the table should always go around and ask everybody else, ‘Do you have anything else to add?’ so that any quiet voices are allowed to speak up. It’s very, very important because sometimes people just feel like they’re not gonna be heard or people talk over them.” Avoid overlooking the introverts, who might need extra coaxing to share their opinions.
5. 5. Take action. A meeting with action items is rarely a waste of time. “I think it’s very important that every meeting has accountability,” Indra insists. “Every meeting has a next step. Every meeting leads to some action or decision.” Write down what everyone needs to do on a whiteboard while you’re all in the meeting together, then send out an email encouraging people to follow through on those tasks.
6. 6. Think before speaking. Some meeting attendees might feel the urge to speak just to speak, but this can be counterproductive. “It’s always a question of, why are you using up the air time?” asks Indra. “What do you want to contribute to the discussion? Are you just trying to make an impression? Or do you want to really help the decision-making?” Share information essential to enabling effective teamwork. In the meantime, when other people speak, use open body language to show you’re actively listening to them.
7. 7. Try to follow up. Check in before your next meeting to ensure people are following through on all the action items. “At the end of the meeting or the day after,” Indra says, “somebody should put out a note saying, ‘These were the objectives of the meeting. Did we fulfill the objectives?’” Particularly if you’re the meeting note taker or facilitator, you have a duty to reach out and make sure everyone has what they need to put the meeting’s agenda items into effect.

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