#1 - Plan for it. Never go into a meeting planning to just “wing it.” Your attendees will sense your lack of preparation and take that to mean that your meetings aren’t very important to you. And if they aren’t important to you, then why should they be important to them? So plan well for them, create an agenda, and share that agenda with all planned attendees a day in advance, if possible. That gives everyone enough time to prepare their contributions, if necessary.