Running your own Meeting

Learn how to run meetings that are effective, productive, and interesting.

Ending a Meeting

When the meeting concludes, shake hands with the senior ranking member. Either acknowledge the others with a simple nod and smile, or take the time to shake their hands as well.

Who to Invite and How to Write a Proper Meeting Announcement

Schedule the Meeting

According to Creighton and Adams (199 in CyberMeetings, typical meeting agenda items are covered only about half the time (53 percent). In this lesson, you will learn how to plan, run, and follow up on your meeting.

How Long Should the Meeting Last?

The biggest mistake most people make when scheduling a meeting is miscalculating the amount of time needed for a successful meeting. Here are some tips when deciding on the length:

• Don’t try to cram too many agenda topics into a 30-minute meeting. I recommend no more than two topics per meeting. Adult education statistics show that it’s not possible to keep an adult’s attention for more than 30 minutes at a time. That’s not to say the meeting shouldn’t go longer than 30 minutes. But if it does, it had better be fast-paced and interesting.
• Don’t get caught up in the 30-or-60 mindset. Many people will automatically allocate either 30 minutes or a full hour when scheduling a meeting simply because these quantities of time are common and expected. Don’t feel pressured to fill an hour if you don’t have an hour of issues to cover. If your meeting only needs 40 minutes, then only schedule 40 minutes.

Who Should Attend the Meeting?

In most meetings in corporate America, 20 percent of the people who are asked to attend have no real need to be present. That wastes the person’s time, and the company’s productivity.

• Only invite individuals whose attendance is absolutely necessary
• If there’s someone who should know what happened in the meeting, but whose attendance isn’t absolutely necessary, send them a quick e-mail outlining the outcomes of the meeting

Deciding the Agenda

• The best way to guarantee active and interested participation at a meeting is to include agenda items that are of great concern to the meeting attendees.
• When you send out the meeting invitation, ask attendees if they have any agenda item requests. That will allow you to include those items on the agenda.
• If someone has an agenda item that isn’t directly related to the meeting topic, ask the attendee if you can hold a separate meeting in the future on that specific topic.

When and How to Send Meeting Invitations

• The nature of your meeting will dictate how you send the meeting invitation. For small, informal meetings the telephone will work fine. For larger meetings, you may want to consider e-mail or a memo.
• Send meeting invitations for in-house meetings at least one week in advance, when possible.
• Send meeting invitations for formal meetings two to four weeks in advance.

Note: If you must call a meeting sooner than a week’s notice, follow up your e-mail or memo announcement with a phone call so the attendee can be informed as soon as possible.

Writing the Meeting Announcement

The meeting announcement should include several components:

• Place, date, and time of the meeting
• Meeting initiator — your name
• Invited attendee — your guest
• The SINGLE purpose of the meeting

Every meeting purpose statement should include a benefit to the attendees. People who receive meeting invitations should always be able to answer the question, “What’s the benefit to me, personally, of attending?” If they can answer this question, you’ve done a good job of identifying who should attend and what the meeting will entail.

• Each agenda item and time frames designated for each item
• Advanced preparation required by the attendees

When participants have the agenda and access to background information before the meeting, it gives them sufficient time to prepare for any discussions or decisions that will occur during the meeting. When distributing the agenda, remind participants that it’s their responsibility to come prepared to the meeting.

Who Sits Where?

• In most meetings today, it’s acceptable to allow participants to sit where they want. However, you may want to reserve the seat next to you for your assistant. Also, if others will be contributing to the meeting, make sure they are seated close to the front of the room.
• Leave a few seats open near the exit to accommodate latecomers and those who need to leave a few minutes early.

A Company that Takes Its Meetings Seriously

Intel Corporation is an example of an organization that takes its meetings very seriously. Walk into any conference room at any Intel factory or office anywhere in the world and you will see a poster on the wall with a series of simple questions about the meetings that take place there:

• Do you know the purpose of this meeting?
• Do you have an agenda?
• Do you know your role?

Every new employee, from the most junior production worker to the highest-ranking executive, is required to take the company’s course on effective meetings. For years, the course was taught by CEO Andy Grove, who believed that good meetings were such an important part of Intel’s culture that it was worth his time to train all employees.

A Nation of Meeters

According to a Network MCI Conferencing White Paper (1998), approximately 11 million meetings occur in the U.S. each and every day.

Handling Interruptions

When leading a meeting, there are basically four types of individuals who can spoil your meeting by incessant interruptions. Here is a list of each type and how to recognize them:

Monopolizers

• How to recognize them: They interrupt, often. They ramble and repeat. They do this because they enjoy hearing themselves speak.
• Tips for dealing with Monopolizers: Don’t argue with them, but don’t hesitate to confront them. Wait until they come up for air and interrupt them by name. Note the point they’ve made and immediately invite someone else to comment on the topic.

Distracters

• How to recognize them: They seek attention. To get it, they’ll often bring up irrelevant topics that waste time.
• Tips for dealing with Distracters: Firmly halt Distracters, restate the meeting purpose, and ask them to answer a specific question to get them to focus on the main topic.

Snipers

• How to recognize them: They resort to stage-whispered, snide comments to challenge your authority by switching attention from you to them.
• Tips for dealing with Snipers: Shine the spotlight on them and bluntly ask them to share their comments with everyone. Most will be so embarrassed that they’ll decline. This may sound like we are in school, but it works.

Skeptics

• How to recognize them: They criticize everything you or others say.
• Tips for dealing with Skeptics: If they become negative or critical during the meeting, let them know that you’re looking for solutions, not criticism. Then ask them to contribute.

Demonstrating True Leadership in Meetings

Think about the group dynamics; as a leader you need to recognize the various roles group members are taking, and think about the kind of roles you are taking.

• Work for a balance between businesslike and a fun casual environment. If you are perceived as too businesslike and task-oriented by others, you may have difficulty being accepted as a group member as well as a leader. Remember, what’s important in a group setting is not what you think you are doing, but how others perceive and interpret what you are doing.
• Be responsible for limiting discussions and setting time parameters for various activities. When deciding how much time to spend on a certain issue, think about how complex the task should be, and how important it is to the group.
• Clarifying for others where the group is in terms of solving a problem or working through an issue. Leaders need to be reality testers — they need to bring up points such as: “Are we spending too much time setting this schedule?” or “This is a major decision; perhaps we should spend more time thinking about it before we reach a consensus,” and “Is the color of the poster really that important?”When challenging the importance of a point or argument, think about respecting the person who is presenting the point; while their idea may not be worthwhile, they certainly are worthwhile. Also, put the group’s needs above your own needs; i.e., if you are getting bored but the group seems to be accomplishing something by further discussion, it’s best to let it continue.
• Keep in mind that different types of meetings call for different styles of leadership. Meetings held just so members of a group can get together and catch up with each other can be much less formal and task-oriented than meetings called to handle a specific problem.
• Interrupting: When you believe it’s necessary to interrupt someone, wait until they have finished the sentence. Try to be considerate of that person’s feelings; acknowledge that you are interrupting and explain the reason why, if possible.
• Good leaders are not monopolizers in meetings; they are effective facilitators who allow others to participate as much as possible. This can be partially accomplished by encouraging others to offer input or ideas and for supporting them when they do, even if their ideas are not seen as excellent by the group; e.g., “That doesn’t look like a realistic option right now, Jack, but I appreciate you suggesting it.”
• Be consistent in enforcing procedures and limiting discussions, or be able to explain why exceptions are being made. Always think about the reasons for what you are doing; an effective leader is not arbitrary or capricious unless really necessary. For example, it might be OK to be arbitrary about setting a deadline for a project if the group cannot come to a consensus on it.
• Recognize and utilize other formal and informal leaders in the group. Respect their leadership and work with them rather than against them. In most cases, it’s more important that the group function effectively rather than that you are in charge. Watch out for “contrary” leaders; people who possess some leadership abilities but seem to be using these abilities against the better interests of the group.

Want to Know What Your Senior Manager Does?

According to Creighton and Adams (199 in CyberMeetings, more than 70 percent of senior managers’ time is spent in meetings.

Keeping the Meeting on Time

Out of respect for the commitment and sanity of everyone who attends, meetings should never run over the time allotted — especially regularly scheduled meetings. Here are some tips to keep your meeting on schedule:

• If the session gets bogged down with an issue, schedule it for another meeting. If the meeting must conclude by taking an action or decision, then identify this early enough or reschedule accordingly.
• Tell all the participants before the meeting starts that it will go as long as necessary to reach the stated conclusion. Don’t mislead people by minimizing the amount of work involved; that kind of trickery will only come back to haunt you.
• Have a timekeeper.When I worked at a large consulting firm in Chicago, we had a daily update meeting that lasted from 9 a.m. to 9:15 a.m. When I first heard about the morning meetings, I thought, “Oh, God, we’ll be in a meeting every day until 10 a.m.!” But the meeting manager (who was the owner of the company) had a great way of keeping meetings on track. The least senior person on staff was designated as the timekeeper. Their job was to announce “TIME” at 9:15 a.m. Sharp. It made no difference who was speaking, even if it was the CEO.The amazing thing was that everyone — even the owner and CEO — abided by this time rule. What couldn’t be solved in those 15 minutes was postponed to the next day’s agenda. If it was an item that was an urgent nature, then the CEO would assign only the people affected by the issue to schedule another meeting. That way, not everyone’s time was monopolized.

Basically, if you follow all the necessary preparation steps and keep to your meeting agenda and outline, you should be able to keep your meeting running on schedule.

In the next lesson, you will learn how to deal with conflict among coworkers in the workplace.

Assignment: Running your own Meeting

Please read Chapter 28 in The Etiquette Advantage in Business.

Think of one thing that you’d like to change about your meetings. The one thing that really drives you up the meeting room wall. The hurdle you know your group has the power to overcome, but hasn’t yet made the commitment to try. Perhaps it’s as basic as being better prepared for your meetings, creating an agenda before every meeting, or really making an effort to start and finish your meetings on time.

Write a paragraph or make an outline:

• One thing I want to change about my meetings:
• Strategies I’ll use to achieve this change: