Meetings, some like them – some hate them. In Baltimore where we happened to be based – meetings have a culture of their own – an a necessary part of doing business. Recently we saw a post about meetings on LinkedIn – it listed 3 ways to get you noticed in LinkedIn – over 60 people commented on the discussion.
Albeit the original article that appeared in Inc magazine – was informative, we felt it left out a lot of important information about how to make meetings better. Click here to read the original article.
Anyway, the cool thing was we got all these great tips and points of view from ALL over the US on how you can make a meeting better. With that in mind we thought women business owners, decision makers and entrepreneurs might welcome a listing of what we considered to be some of the best.
So here goes – The first ever
MyCity4Her.com List of Ways to Love meetings
Rebecca Stern of Barnes & Conti Associates facilitates trainings that help people run productive meetings. She was also the first to respond and comment. Some of the strategies she shared include:
1) Encouraging diversity
Have people from other departments sit in on the meeting and provide their input.
2)Use a “Round Robin” Format
When a question is posed, have everyone take a turn to answer. MyCity4Her would add… if it makes sense,. If there are 20 people at the table, perhaps not so much but is a great way to make people feel heard, seen, valued and included.
3) Refuse to accept the first good idea as the final solution
MyCity4Her would add…We like this one, because the best solution is rarely the first and its not good to delay long term progress out of a desire to make things more expedient in the moment. Think about that. Now if you’re debating which type of coffee to serve, that’s different – but if it’s an important, costly and laborious problem – it goes without saying – a few more ideas is a wise investment in a worthwhile, long term and effective solution.
4) Understand your audience
This was contributed by Renee Gudz-Mulkey MBA and the Human Resources Manager at Strategic Building Solutions
MyCity4Her would add that this is CRITICAL – it makes no sense to address an audience of Japanese (who don’t speak anything but Japanese) speaking in Italian…knowing who your audience is (whether it’s a one on one or a sea of hundreds) can make any meeting infinitely more productive. Before the meeting do your homework and come prepared.
A) Establish the agenda – formally or informally –learn how to write an agenda by clicking here.
MaryEllen Mealy and Dawn McAvoy also encouraged the importance of an agenda as well. In all honestly many people did – so people – get the point, and establish agenda’s your meeting participants will thank you!
B) Do your homework
This means do your “due diligence” and know what the key points of the meeting are about and the purpose for gathering, with that in mind think about what you can bring to the table to make it better, and keep in mind what do you want to get out of it.
C) Accept the reality that not everyone is the same, and a big part of meeting success is being patient and willing to accept different view points.
5) Read the book “Death by Meetings” by Patrick Lencioni
One of the Barnes & Noble book reviews about it reads…
“Finally, a real solution to an age-old problem. Meetings may never be the same.” —Kris Hagerman, executive vice president, strategic operations, VERITAS Software Corporation
“Death by Meeting is about much more than meetings; it’s about an entire management philosophy. I read a lot of books on management, and Lencioni’s are among the very best. They form the basis for our approach at Silicon Valley Bank.” –Ken
MyCity4Her would have to add that we agree and feel that meetings can be the death of people, and of organizations – stagnating people’s enthusiasm, productivity and more! All the more the reason to be better about planning, conducting and follow up after them.
We’d like to thank Dawn Harger, a Customer Service professional in San Francisco and Patricia Justice, a Human Resource professional based in Houston Texas for recommending that people read this book as part of their comments and suggestions for how to make meetings more efficient.
At the end of the day whether you love them, or love to hate them, hopefully this list will help you make them better. We’ll be adding to this in a series and do leave your comments, thoughts and/or questions below, meanwhile, we wish you much continued success!