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| Running Effective Meetings |
| by Kellie Fowler |
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| While meetings are wonderful tools for generating ideas, expanding on thoughts and managing group activity, this face-to-face contact with team members and colleagues can easily fail without adequate preparation and leadership. |
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| •The Importance of Preparation |
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To ensure everyone involved has the opportunity to provide their input, start your meeting off on the right foot by designating a meeting time that allows all participants the time needed to adequately prepare.
Once a meeting time and place has been designated, make yourself available for questions that may arise as participants prepare for the meeting. If you are the meeting leader, make a meeting agenda, complete with detailed notes.
In these notes, outline the goal and proposed structure of the meeting, and share this with the participants. This will allow all involved to prepare and to come to the meeting ready to work together to meet the goal(s) at hand.
The success of the meeting is hinged on the skills displayed by the meeting leader. To ensure the meeting is successful, the leader should:
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Generate an agenda to all involved in the meeting. |
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Start the discussion and encourage active participation. |
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Work to keep the meeting at a comfortable pace – not moving too fast or too slow. |
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Summarize the discussion and the recommendations at the end of each logical section. |
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Circulate minutes to all participants. |
While these tips will help ensure your meeting is productive and well-received, there are other important areas that need to be touched on to make sure your meeting and negotiation skills are fine-tuned and ready to take to the boardroom. |
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| • Managing a Meeting |
Choosing the right participants is key to the success of any meeting. Make sure all participants can contribute and choose good decision-makes and problem-solvers. Try to keep the number of participants to a maximum of 12, preferably fewer. Make sure the people with the necessary information for the items listed in the meeting agenda are the ones that are invited.
If you are the leader, work diligently to ensure everyone’s thoughts and ideas are heard by guiding the meeting so that there is a free flow of debate with no individual dominating and no extensive discussions between two people. As time dwindles for each item on the distributed agenda, you may find it useful to stop the discussion, then quickly summarize the debate on that agenda item and move on the next item on the agenda.
When an agenda item is resolved or action is agreed upon, make it clear who in the meeting will be responsible for this. In an effort to bypass confusion and misunderstandings, summarize the action to be taken and include this in the meeting’s minutes. |
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| • Issuing Minutes |
Minutes record the decisions of the meeting and the actions agreed. They provide a record of the meeting and, importantly, they provide a review document for use at the next meeting so that progress can be measured - this makes them a useful disciplining technique as individuals' performance and non-performance of agreed actions is given high visibility.
The style of the minutes issued depends on the circumstances - in situations of critical importance and where the record is important, then you may need to take detailed minutes. Where this is not the case, then minutes can be simple lists of decisions made and of actions to be taken (with the responsible person identified). Generally, they should be as short as possible as long as all key information is shown - this makes them quick and easy to prepare and digest.
It is always impressive if the leader of a meeting issues minutes within 24 hours of the end of the meeting - it's even better if they are issued on the same day. |
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| • Win-Win Negotiation - Finding a fair compromise |
Negotiation skills help you to resolve situations where what you want conflicts with what someone else wants. The aim of negotiation is to explore the situation to find a solution that is acceptable to both parties.
There are different styles of negotiation, depending on circumstances. Where you do not expect to deal with people ever again and you do not need their goodwill, then it may be appropriate to ‘play hardball’, seeking to win a negotiation while the other person loses out. Many people go through this when they buy or sell a house – this is why house-buying can be such a confrontational and unpleasant experience. Similarly, where there is a great deal at stake in a negotiation (for example, in large sales negotiations), then it may be appropriate to prepare in detail and use a certain amount of subtle gamesmanship to gain advantage.
Both of these approaches are usually wrong for resolving disputes with people you have an ongoing relationship with: if one person plays hardball, then this disadvantages the other person – this may, quite fairly, lead to reprisal later. Similarly, using tricks and manipulation during a negotiation can severely undermine trust and damage teamwork. While a manipulative person may not get caught out if negotiation is infrequent, this is not the case when people work together on a frequent basis. Honesty and openness are the best policies in this case.
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Preparing for a successful negotiation |
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Depending on the scale of the disagreement, a level of preparation may be appropriate for conducting a successful negotiation. For small disagreements, excessive preparation can be counter-productive because it takes time that is better used elsewhere. It can also be seen as manipulative because just as it strengthens your position, it can weaken the other person’s. If a major disagreement needs to be resolved, then it can be worth preparing thoroughly. Think through the following points before you start negotiating:
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Goals |
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what do you want to get out of the negotiation? What do you expect the other person to want? |
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Trades |
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What do you and the other person have that you can trade? What do you each have that the other might want? What might you each be prepared to give away? |
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Alternatives |
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if you don’t reach agreement with the other person, what alternatives do you have? Are these good or bad? How much does it matter if you do not reach agreement? Does failure to reach an agreement cut you out of future opportunities? What alternatives might the other person have? |
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Relationships |
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what is the history of the relationship? Could or should this history impact the negotiation? Will there be any hidden issues that may influence the negotiation? How will you handle these? |
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‘Expected outcomes’ |
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what outcome will people be expecting from this negotiation? What has the outcome been in the past, and what precedents have been set? |
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The consequences |
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what are the consequences for you of winning or losing this negotiation? What are the consequences for the other person? |
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Power |
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who has what power in the relationship? Who controls resources? Who stands to lose the most if agreement isn’t reached? What power does the other person have to deliver what you hope for? |
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Possible solutions |
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based on all of the considerations, what possible compromises might there be? |
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Style is critical |
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For a negotiation to be 'win-win', both parties should feel positive about the situation when the negotiation is concluded. This helps to maintain a good working relationship afterwards. This governs the style of the negotiation – histrionics and displays of emotion are clearly inappropriate because they undermine the rational basis of the negotiation and because they bring a manipulative aspect to them.
Despite this, emotion can be an important subject of discussion because people's emotional needs must fairly be met. If emotion is not discussed where it needs to be, then the agreement reached can be unsatisfactory and temporary. Be as detached as possible when discussing your own emotions – perhaps discuss them as if they belong to someone else.
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Negotiating successfully |
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The negotiation itself is a careful exploration of your position and the other person’s position, with the goal of finding a mutually acceptable compromise that gives you both as much of what you want as possible. People's positions are rarely as fundamentally opposed as they may initially appear - the other person may quite often have very different goals from the ones you expect!
In an ideal situation, you will find that the other person wants what you are prepared to trade, and that you are prepared to give what the other person wants.
If this is not the case and one person must give way, then it is fair for this person to try to negotiate some form of compensation for doing so – the scale of this compensation will often depend on the many of the factors we discussed above. Ultimately, both sides should feel comfortable with the final solution if the agreement is to be considered win-win.
Only consider win-lose negotiation if you don't need to have an ongoing relationship with the other party as, having lost, they are unlikely to want to work with you again. Equally, you should expect that if they need to fulfill some part of the deal in which you have "won" over them, they will probably be fairly unco-operative about it. |
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| • Speaking to an Audience - Communicate Complex Ideas Successfully |
Speaking to an audience can be fun and exciting. However, lack of preparation or not clearly defining the presentation’s goals and its audience can make even the best-intended presentation a complete disaster. |
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| •Preparation - The Key to Successful Speaking |
To ensure your presentation is effective, first determine your objective. Ask yourself:
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Why am I giving the presentation? |
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What do I want the audience to take away from the presentation? |
Second, determine your audience. Their familiarity with the presentation topic will determine the level at which you present your speech. |
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| • How to Structure Your Presentation |
Once you have determined your presentation’s objective and overall goal, as well as the audience, it’s time to structure your presentation. You will need to start this process by determining the length of the presentation. Take the allotted time and break it into smaller segments, with each segment tackling a specific task (all of which reflect the overall objective of the presentation). For example, the fist segment should be the presentation introduction. In this segment, you should give an overview of your presentation, or a short summary of your speech, explaining the topic, why you are covering this topic, and what you hope to accomplish.
The next segment should tackle the first item on your agenda, with the following segment tackling the following item on your agenda, and so on. Once you have developed the introduction and outlined the following segments, spend some time thinking about the conclusion of the presentation. The introduction of the presentation and the conclusion of the presentation are the most important parts and should have the strongest impact. |
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| • Achieving Clarity and Impact |
Keep your presentation short and simple. Your audience will not remember every point of your presentation, so highlight the most important parts. The longer the presentation, the higher the risk of boredom. When in doubt, use the “tell ‘em” structure:
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Tell them what you are going to tell them (For instance, “In this presentation I will show you…”). |
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Tell them the key points, expanding and illustrating each one, clearly and concisely. |
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Tell them what you have told them (For instance, “In closing…” or “In summary…”) and conclude. |
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| • Reinforce Your Message With Visual Aids |
Next, consider the use of visual aids. Slide projectors, data projectors, video machines and computers should be tested out beforehand to make sure they are operating correctly and that you know how to use them. Make sure you do not cram too much information onto any single visual. A good rule of thumb to follow is to keep each visual to six lines or less. Also, make sure any type or graphics are large enough the audience can see it clearly (from all seats) and make sure the colors used are easy on the eyes, taking into account the lighting.
A sad fact is that much of your authority will be judged by the quality of your slides - you need to make sure that their design supports the style of your message. Overheads should be clearly marked and arranged in order beforehand. Flip charts should be prepared in advance when possible. When used during the presentation to take notes, make print large enough for all participants to see. When using these various visuals, do not turn your back to the audience. Position yourself so you can use the visuals while facing your audience.
Be concise. Be brief. Use short words and sentences. Where appropriate, support these with short, easy-to-understand examples, which help demonstrate your message. |
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| • Arranging the Room |
If possible, visit the room in which you will make the presentation well in advance. Determine seating (circle seating encourages interaction, rows of seats discourages interaction, etc.) and determine how the visual aids you choose will work. Consider lighting, space, even the temperature of the room. Consider placing notepads and pencils at each seat if participants need to take notes. Or, you may want to have glasses at each seat with a few pitchers of water if the presentation is going to last more than half of an hour. If you do this, make sure you allow time for bathroom breaks.
While you do not need to memorize your entire presentation, make yourself very, very familiar with it through several practice runs. Rehearse the presentation in its entirety as often as you can before delivering it to a live audience. The more you rehearse, the more confident you will be and the more fluent you will seem to your audience - if you know your subject matter and have adequately prepared, you will be able to deliver your message loud and clear.
When in doubt or nervous, stay focused on your purpose – helping your audience understand your message. Direct your thoughts to the subject at hand. The audience has come to hear your presentation and you will succeed! |
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| • Tips and Techniques |
Tips to help make your presentation a smashing success:
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Avoid too many statistics and confusing information in your presentation. Instead, put this information in a handout for participants to refer to at a later date. |
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If you forget your words, pause for a moment and remember your objective. While the words may not come right back to you, this will help keep you on track and may even help you to think of additional thoughts and ideas your audience will benefit from hearing. |
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Visualize yourself succeeding. |
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Begin by breathing. |
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Before the presentation, focus on the needs of the audience. |
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Take a public speaking course at a local college or university. These are oftentimes offered as night courses and are usually very inexpensive, while providing you with important skills that will enhance your confidence in this area. |
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Videotape yourself going through the presentation. All you need to do this is a video camera and a tripod. Then, run through the video and make changes according to your thoughts on the taped presentation. |
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