Making meetings effective and engaging is an important part of a leader’s job. Meetings remain critically important to organizational progress and success, but too many meetings are boring, lengthy, and unproductive.

What’s the measure of a successful meeting? Did it achieve the desired results? If so, it was successful. If people engaged and contributed, that’s also a measure of success, one that’s important to the overall success of your team, but it’s a secondary measure of meeting success.

Here are 10 ways you can lead successful meetings:

1. Get clear about the goal of your meeting. If it’s a weekly staff meeting, the goal might be to share status reports so people know how their work fits into the big picture and how they can support each other’s work. If it’s a strategic meeting, the goal might be to make a decision about a new tool, protocol, or even direction. If you’re not clear about your goal, you’re not ready to lead your meeting.

2. Decide who should attend. This can be a bit of a balancing act. You don’t want to waste the time of people who don’t need to participate. If the information is important to them, you can simply send it after the meeting. However, you don’t want to exclude people who might make meaningful contributions and perhaps add diverse perspectives. Keep both in mind as you decide who to include in your meetings.

3. Prepare your agenda and assign roles. Someone once complained to me that his manager led weekly staff meetings by taking his inbox into the meetings and going through it page by page with his staff. You wouldn’t do that, would you? No. Prepare your agenda. Begin with the overall goal of the meeting at the top of the page. Then, list the topics to be addressed and/or questions to be decided. I don’t advise rotating the leadership role of recurring meetings, but I do suggest assigning topics and questions to members of your team to present. This gives them the opportunity to prepare in advance and develop their leadership skills. It also provides variety for the group. Assign a time to each agenda item. You might also assign someone to keep notes during the meeting and provide follow-up after the meeting.

4. Establish ground rules. After agreeing to facilitate an annual meeting for a group of professionals, I was told they had a history of arguing and angrily stomping out of meetings. After consideration, I decided to avoid this disruptive behavior by starting our meeting with ground rules. It worked. We had a respectful, successful meeting. Here are a few ground rules for you to consider:

Respect. This is, in my opinion, the most important ground rule. If this ground rule is followed, the others simply fall into place. People can disagree, but they must do so respectfully. Respectful disagreement is healthy.

Assume positive intent. I often share this advice with clients. People might not agree with you about the right thing to do, but like you, most people want to do what they think is right. When you assume positive intent, you’ll be able to discuss your differences respectfully and you’ll be more likely to find commonalities and reach agreement(s).

One person speaks at a time. Don’t interrupt. This is a sign of respect that allows people to stay focused and concentrate on one speaker and one idea at a time. People must wait for their turn to add to the discussion with their own questions and comments.

No multitasking. Consider requesting phones be turned off.

Have fun! I firmly believe people can have fun while doing serious work.

5. Encourage participation. If you assigned one or more leadership roles, you’ve already begun to encourage participation. At the beginning of the meeting, ask people to speak up, reminding them the meeting will be more engaging and effective if they participate. During the meeting, invite people to speak, assuring them their input is welcome and important. Thank people for sharing their ideas and never ridicule anyone for their ideas or suggestions.

6. Manage participation. Some people are quite comfortable sharing their opinions and might, unintentionally, begin to dominate the conversation. As the leader, it’s important for you to note their contribution, express your appreciation, and then guide the conversation to another participant. You might call on someone by name, “Jean, you have experience in this area. What are your thoughts?” If the meeting strays away from the planned goal and agenda, use what is called a meeting “parking lot” to record ideas that are valuable but need to be explored later.

7. Value creativity. Brainstorming has been used to uncover new ideas for many years. However, research has shown that group brainstorming often discourages the formation of new ideas. An alternative is brainwriting. Commit a certain amount of time, perhaps 5 minutes, for everyone to write down ideas without talking. Then share and discuss the ideas together. Whereas brainstorming can be intimidating, encouraging only the boldest people in the room, brainwriting encourages creativity and full discussion from everyone.

8. Manage time. Monitor your progress according to the time allotted on your agenda. If a topic is completed early, great. Don’t extend the conversation simply to fill the void. If a topic is taking longer than expected, consider postponing further discussion until your next meeting, scheduling a new meeting to address that topic, or adjusting the remainder of your agenda. This is another situation when you can use a parking lot to capture the progress you’ve made but postpone further discussion until a later time. Always start and stop your meeting on time.

9. Wrap up. Did you achieve the meeting results you wanted? Was the appropriate information shared between participants? Were the necessary decisions made? Were action items identified and assigned? Were deadlines agreed upon? If so, it’s time to close your meeting. Remember to thank your team for their participation.

10. Follow up. You or a designated member of your team should follow up on the meeting, preferably within 24 hours, by sending the minutes, if appropriate; the decisions made; action items identified; assignments made; and deadlines agreed upon.

The above 10 suggestions will help you plan and lead successful team meetings. Your successful meetings will help you and your team make the progress you desire in the short term. Additionally, they will create a culture of participation and creativity that will lead to long-term engagement and retention.