Black Swan Training Solutions Hot Tip - Communications - Meeting Preparation
Welcome to the mid-summer Hot Tip from Black Swan Training.
This time we are going to look at preparation for meetings as a way to improve their effectiveness.
Love them or hate them, meetings will continue to be an essential method of communication, for the foreseeable future at least, and we've all been to bad ones. So, what makes a meeting effective?
Most would say that an effective meeting is one which achieves its objectives in the minimum amount of time to the satisfaction of all participants.
Preparation is key for both conveners and attendees and here are some tips to include in your pre-meeting checklist: -
If you have called the meeting ask yourself:
- Is a meeting necessary, or can information be disseminated and questions dealt with another way?
- What are the group's expectations? What do they need?
- Is a decision required or just an exchange of information? A meeting to make decisions or problem solve should involve all those responsible for carrying out these activities/functions, and those who can inform that decision. Beware of important people sending their assistants who won't have enough authority to make commitments.
- What's the background to the meeting? Why is it important?
- What's the right venue for the meeting? How formal or informal should it be?
- When's the best time to hold the meeting?
- What contribution will each attendee be able to make?
and ask the attendees
- Do they have views on the agenda?
- What would they consider as a successful outcome?
- What venue and time would they prefer?
- How do the attendees expectations fit with yours?
As you prepare:
- Invite the right people to your meeting to get the right contributions. Who are the people who must attend to achieve the right outcome and who are less important? A communication meeting to pass on information is not normally participative (so, is it necessary?) but they do allow discussion of the interpretations. Make sure you include all those who need to know.
- Be prepared to move the meeting if the important people aren't attending.
- Be prepared to adjust the agenda, but stick to the objective.
Before the meeting:
- Send out an agenda.
- Make sure everyone has all the relevant information that is available beforehand. Try and minimise the surprises.
- Be clear about how long the meeting will run.
- Give people time to prepare.
- Gauge what frame of mind the attendees will be in (eg: looking for/expecting a fight, unco-operative, conciliatory, positive) and be prepared to deal with it.
If you are attending a meeting:
- Find out what the purpose is and who else is attending.
- Check the agenda.
- Make sure you are informed by reading all the relevant material. Ignorance is no excuse!
- Prepare what you want to say.
- Anticipate and prepare for the questions you might get.
Remember, everybody:
- Start the meeting in a positive frame of mind, that's how you're likely to get the best from it.
- Everyone can come up with good ideas, be prepared to listen!
- Ask for feedback - make sure your meetings are productive.
- Learn from the lessons of previous meetings.
- Use good questioning techniques as covered in our Hot Tip at the beginning of May.