All of us will have times when things come up, but if Linda has a pattern of things coming up, that is something you need to address as unacceptable. Frame it in terms of the impact of that behavior on the other participants and the company. Ask for her full agreement to change that behavior. This kind of immediate and direct communication, when respectful and done in private after the meeting, usually will clean up unproductive behavior.
You took the time to put together an agenda, so take the time to make sure that you stick to it. Whoever leads the meeting has the task of guiding the conversation, touching on all agenda items while giving participants the opportunity to contribute. If you find yourself going off track, push past the unproductive moment and steer the group back to the task at hand. This will keep your meetings short and productive.
Follow up on action items.
A productive meeting is great, but it’s nothing without adequate follow-through. At the end of each meeting, go back over your minutes and clarify action commitments for your team members. Set a due date on each action item and put it in the recap.
It might sound like this:
“Let’s recap what we agreed to do. Tim, you own two action steps from today, X and Y, both of which are to be done by this Friday close of business. You agreed to mark them complete on the project board when done. Sarah, you own item Z, which is due by the 15th, and which you’ll give a summary of the outcome in your next weekly report…”
Do we still hold our biweekly $1,000-dollar-an-hour conference calls? Absolutely. And thanks to planning and follow-through, the results are worth every single penny.