Welcome to tips and techniques for holding Effective Meetings.
Learn more about facilitation that gets results, workshops that show how, and books that make sense at: One Great Meeting
Why Meetings Matter
It's More Than a Meeting, It's Your Future
Effective Meetings help you:
- Make Money
- Smart businesses prosper
- Good ideas earn a return on investment
- Efficient operation attracts customers - Save Money
- Good decisions cost less to implement
- People receive pay for performance, not chit chat
- Inspired employees stay - Increase Employee Effectiveness
- Involvement creates ownership
- Success inspires effort
- Achievement builds loyalty - Maximize Your Human Resource
- Synergy makes the group a genius
- Teams outperform individuals
- Group wisdom knows more - Create Expanding Excellence
- Leaders use them to teach leadership
- Top performers emerge as new leaders
- Success leads to more success
Bad Meetings Cause Damage
6 Reasons to Worry
Bad meetings:
- Waste money by paying people to do nothing
- Allow the loud and vocal to dominate
- Fail to produce useful results, or
- Produce results that no one will support, or
- Produce results that people sabotage
- Bore people into quitting
Why People Hold Bad Meetings
Would You Buy Stock in a Company Run by People Who Hold Bad Meetings?
If bad meetings are so destructive, why would anyone tolerate them?
It's because they're:
It's because they're:
- Clueless. These people do not know what an effective meeting is like. They have never heard of goals, an agenda, or results. Some of them live in remote villages that have yet to discover soap.
- Ignorant. These people know that an effective meeting is possible. They may have even attended one, perhaps more than once. But they do not know how to plan or conduct one.
- Misguided. These people imitate prominent executives in their organization, hoping to win approval. Unfortunately, this often works, thus perpetuating an operational malady.
- Bad. These people know how to set goals, prepare an agenda, and hold an effective meeting and yet they choose not to. Why? Because they derive a benefit such as:
They avoid accountability.
Good meetings produce results that someone one must implement. Without results, performance is based on talk instead of achievement.
They show off.
Good meetings focus on work. Instead, these people entertain and impress a captive audience with stories, jokes, and trivia.
They prefer play.
Good meetings are hard work, requiring intense thought. But anyone can attend a bad meeting - even a hamster - because a bad meeting requires nothing except endurance. (Bad meetings are the executive equivalent of a wire wheel.)
They dominate.
Good meetings use equitable participation to obtain shared achievements. Some people prevent this because they want to be in control of everything.
What to Do
8 Easy Tips That Will Make You a Star
- Avoid meetings. Hold meetings only for important tasks that require group effort. Otherwise, write a memo, make a phone call, or visit the person next door.
- Have a goal. In fact, write out the goal. It should be so clear and complete that someone else could use it to set up and lead your meeting.
- Prepare an agenda. This should be a complete description of what people will do to accomplish your goal (instead of a list of words that everyone will interpret differently).
- Keep it small. Invite only people who can make meaningful contributions. Send potential spectators a copy of the minutes.
- Keep it short. You want to earn a profit on your meeting, and that means the cost should be kept as low as possible. Long meetings are expensive.
- Involve everyone. Now that you invited them, put them to work.
- Record what happens. Write key ideas on a chart pad or white board. This validates everyone's contributions and serves as a draft of your minutes.
- Prepare minutes. Keep them brief and focused on the results (instead of transcript of what everyone said). Quick test: if you have no plans to prepare minutes, why are you holding a meeting that isn't worth documenting?)
What Else to Do
Yes, There's Hope
There are three things that you can do to make your meetings more effective.
1) Schedule a workshop
This will show people who lack effective meeting skills what to do. It may even help those who do "bad" things. Often people make bad choices because they do not know how to obtain what they want through constructive means.
Hint: My workshop on Effective Meetings shows easy, practical techniques that anyone can use.
2) Use a facilitator
When results matter, work with an expert. This especially applies to any meeting held to resolve complex or controversial issues.
Hint: My facilitation creates success for everyone. I've been facilitating meetings since 1982.
3) Call me.
If you want to improve your meetings, then we need to talk.
Call me at 714-528-1300
Hint: Be prepared to answer a lot of questions about what you want to do and why you want to do it.
1) Schedule a workshop
This will show people who lack effective meeting skills what to do. It may even help those who do "bad" things. Often people make bad choices because they do not know how to obtain what they want through constructive means.
Hint: My workshop on Effective Meetings shows easy, practical techniques that anyone can use.
2) Use a facilitator
When results matter, work with an expert. This especially applies to any meeting held to resolve complex or controversial issues.
Hint: My facilitation creates success for everyone. I've been facilitating meetings since 1982.
3) Call me.
If you want to improve your meetings, then we need to talk.
Call me at 714-528-1300
Hint: Be prepared to answer a lot of questions about what you want to do and why you want to do it.
Principles That Drive Effective Meetings
The Foundation for Success
- Everyone has valuable ideas. When you lead a meeting, your job is to maximize the contributions from all the participants.
- Respect motivates people. An environment of respect helps people work at their best. They become more creative, candid, and productive.
- Win win cultures produce more. People achieve more when they work as a team for common good.
- Everyone is a leader. Everyone shares responsibility for the success of a meeting. In fact, a meeting can be led from any chair in the room.
- People will support (or at least accept) a result that they all helped obtain.
What Does a Facilitator Do?
It's More Than Watch People Talk
In General
A facilitator helps a group of people obtain a result that requires all of them working together as a team.
This can include taking care of all parts of the meeting process, such as:
Prepare for the Meeting
A facilitator will help you set clear, realistic goals. Sometimes these may be different from those originally expected because deeper issues may need to be resolved first.
Next the facilitator will survey key participants (and sometimes all of them).
These conversations determine their needs and expectations for the meeting. They uncover private agendas. They gather additional pieces of the background story. And they include everyone in achieving the goal for the meeting.
Then the facilitator will prepare an agenda.
Facilitate the meeting
The facilitator will take the participants through structured activities designed to find solutions, answer questions, reach agreements, and make decisions. (These activities should be practical, easy, and appropriate.)
Throughout the meeting, the facilitator will manage equitable participation, maintain a safe environment, and keep the process on track.
And the facilitator will record key ideas and results. (Note: this may be handled by a scribe.)
Document results
Finally, the facilitator will prepare a report on the meeting, which can include recommendations on next steps.
Key Point
If you decide to work with a facilitator, you must talk to the person. This conversation will let you 1) explore if a meeting is the best approach, 2) clarify the goal for the meeting, and 3) tell your story.
Yes, this takes time.
You see, there are two reasons why a good facilitator achieves results: 1) The facilitator knows how to lead an effective meeting and 2) The facilitator takes the time to prepare.
A facilitator helps a group of people obtain a result that requires all of them working together as a team.
This can include taking care of all parts of the meeting process, such as:
Prepare for the Meeting
A facilitator will help you set clear, realistic goals. Sometimes these may be different from those originally expected because deeper issues may need to be resolved first.
Next the facilitator will survey key participants (and sometimes all of them).
These conversations determine their needs and expectations for the meeting. They uncover private agendas. They gather additional pieces of the background story. And they include everyone in achieving the goal for the meeting.
Then the facilitator will prepare an agenda.
Facilitate the meeting
The facilitator will take the participants through structured activities designed to find solutions, answer questions, reach agreements, and make decisions. (These activities should be practical, easy, and appropriate.)
Throughout the meeting, the facilitator will manage equitable participation, maintain a safe environment, and keep the process on track.
And the facilitator will record key ideas and results. (Note: this may be handled by a scribe.)
Document results
Finally, the facilitator will prepare a report on the meeting, which can include recommendations on next steps.
Key Point
If you decide to work with a facilitator, you must talk to the person. This conversation will let you 1) explore if a meeting is the best approach, 2) clarify the goal for the meeting, and 3) tell your story.
Yes, this takes time.
You see, there are two reasons why a good facilitator achieves results: 1) The facilitator knows how to lead an effective meeting and 2) The facilitator takes the time to prepare.
What Are the Advantages of Working With a facilitator?
What Do You Get for Your Money?
A facilitator:
- Understands meetings, group process, and human dynamics
- Works as a neutral servant of the team, helping it find the best result
- Arrives with no history, no alliances, no debts, no grudges, no baggage
- Can tell people (like the CEO) things that employees would be afraid to mention
- Helps the group obtain results through a process that everyone considers to be fair
- Helps you obtain higher quality results in less time
- Allows you to participate in your meeting
- Manages equitable participation
- Creates a safe environment that makes everyone more productive, creative, and candid
- Notices things that others take for granted
What Are the Disadvantages of Working With a Facilitator?
What Can Go Wrong and How to Prevent It
- It adds to the cost of the meeting. (Of course, holding a meeting without obtaining results is a waste of money. Thus, make sure that you talk to candidate facilitators to determine if you have a good fit.)
- It requires sharing proprietary information with a stranger. (This can be offset by having the facilitator sign a secrecy agreement and by working with a facilitator who has a reputation for being ethical.)
- An unskilled facilitator may offend the participants or waste time on pointless activities. (Be sure to interview candidate facilitators extensively to make sure that you work with someone who is qualified.)
Useful Links
Tons of Valuable Ideas
- One Great Meeting
- Find articles, guides, tips, books, and more - all to help you be a more effective leader.
- We Be Leaders
- Here is a spoof on executive training. Let's hope no one thinks any of these ideas are worth buying. Then again, people call meetings expecting that everyone will arrive with a common approach to achieving an unknown goal.
- How to Select a Facilitator
- Use this guide when evaluating candidates to facilitate your next meeting.
Great Stuff on Amazon
This book belongs on your desk
Gain proven, practical ideas that will help you hold effective meetings.
The Manager's Pocket Guide to Effective Meetings (Manager's Pocket Guide Series)
Amazon Price: $11.01 (as of 11/22/2008) 
April 2006 Newsletter
Free Info That Helps
A missing step, even a simple one, can result in failure. Here's how this can apply to a meeting.
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