Picture yourself in a meeting room. You arrive early and people start trickling
in. It’s a few minute pass while you all
Who will do the most talking? Who will be THAT GUY who won’t agree with
anything. Or THAT GIRL who won’t stop talking even though nothing relevant is
being said.
This is how things start in many of your meetings. Put aside the bliss of the “status” meeting
where you just sit and consume information.
That’s not the meeting we are talking about. We are talking about the meeting that really
needs people to express incredible creativity. The meeting where people need to
solve those intangible problems that people keep saying, “we should do that
some day.”
Energy and time are needed to solve tough problems in a
meeting. Actually you need ENERGY and
TIME and FOCUS. With the proper start of
each meeting you have a chance to give participants a turbo boost of all three
of those things.
Energy
Energy comes from expressing a goal and instilling into
others the sense of urgency to reach the goal.
In a previous article “Change Your Meetings and Change Your Life,” I introduced Better Meeting Magic, a way to change the culture and productivity of a team, department, division or company that embodies the spirit of collaboration, inclusiveness and focus.
Then in a subsequent article, "Improve Your Focus and Improve Your Team's Performance in Meetings", recall that Planning Is Indispensable because you
have created a runway to achieve high altitude performance during your
meeting. You created a meeting GOAL. You included the GOAL in the invitation. And now
you are going to paste it on the wall in the biggest font you can find.
This is step 2 "Opening" in the Better Meeting Magic. You will open a meeting with some
administrative tasks, setting expectations and preparing the participants for
an excellent collaborative experience.
Tip #1: Post the Meeting Goal for High Visibility
On an 11”x17” paper print “Goal: Decide on the Marketing Strategy and Create a List of Step to Achieve It”. You can also write on a flip chart or even on whiteboard. It must stay as a focal point for the whole meeting, so make sure whatever surface you use to present the goals stays visible and does not get erased. Make it public so everyone can see it and read it. You might need to revisit the goal during the session.
Tip #2: Post Meeting Rules for Everyone to See
Also on an 11”x17” paper print “Rules: …”. Same operating principles apply to the Rules sheet as applied to the Goals sheet. Make it visible and keep it posted throughout the duration of the meeting.
Reiterating and publishing the goals ENERGIZES the
participants because they know that this meeting will not waste time and that
achieves the criteria of successful meeting key #1. A goal also FOCUSES the participants and
achieves the criteria of successful meeting key #2. And if you start on TIME and end on TIME, you
will achieve the criteria of successful meeting key #3.
Time
Allocating the correct amount of time to a meeting is
essential and must be part of the planning process. But now that you are in the meeting, you have
to keep yourself and the whole party on track to achieve the goals. Part of
this journey is starting on time. The end of this journey will be better
appreciated if it ends on time as well.
Focus
FOCUS is the essential ingredient to make a meeting work and
you’ve started off with right foot forward if you’ve posted the Goal(s) and
Rule(s) and started on time. The rest of
the meeting is going to be better because you know your purpose. Just like an aircraft flying from Los Angeles
to New York that will fly slightly off course 99% of the time, you too will
continue to adjust the course of the meeting ever so slightly when you see
things getting off track.
Focus! Focus! Focus!
Put time into understand the purpose of the meetings. Then
post Goals and Rules. Then monitor and
gently correct.
Tip #3: Make a Parking Lot for Off Topic Ideas
I almost forgot the Parking Lot. This is a jewel and you cannot forget to put this up on the wall as well.
In order to keep the meeting on track, explain that you have
a Parking Lot and put notes into that space. Write on whiteboards or
flipcharts or post sticky notes for any items that don’t fit into the context
of the meeting, but are burning issue for some of the participants. Be sure to follow-up on this items.
Do you have an interesting story about how a meeting went so
off course? Please write a comment and
share your story.