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Five Steps to ManagingSuccessful Meetings– Serena Williamson, PhD , speaker, author, seminar leader and coach

 specialising in people skills

Managing Successful Meetings:

The ChallengeThree years ago, and with a new engineering degree, Xiao

immigrated to Canada from China. Xiao took her job seriously.

She didn’t spend a lot of time socialising with co-workers andstayed focused on her work. In a short time, Xiao was made project

manager. As project manager in a matrix environment, Xiao had to

run meetings — but she was failing miserably.

First, the wrong people showed up for her meetings — people who didn’t

really need to be present — while the people Xiao needed (decision

makers or people with pertinent information) didn’t show up or came

unprepared. Xiao also felt that attendees did not respect or pay attention

to her. They would use their PDAs or have side conversations with each

other. Xiao felt that this was because she was shy and spoke with a quiet

 voice. She was also younger than many of the people on the project and

felt this was another reason for the lack of respect she was given in the

meetings she chaired.

In addition, there were two regular attendees who constantlyinterrupted her and steered the conversation in different directions.

One attendee was an “ideas” person who could not seem to stay

focused. The other person, a woman a couple of years older than

Xiao, was resentful that Xiao was the project manager. That woman

seemed to be deliberately sabotaging Xiao’s meetings. In the end,

nothing seemed to get accomplished in the meetings, though they

seemed to drag on forever.

Mimicking SuccessXiao noticed that one of the other project managers, Lak, had a

reputation for running successful meetings. Lak’s meetings stayed on

track and were regarded as very productive. Too shy to ask Lak what

his secrets were, Xiao would drop in on his meetings to determine how

she could mimic Lak’s success. It didn’t take long for Xiao to build a listof ve rules that summarised Lak’s successful meeting strategies.

Xiao began applying these rules to facilitate her meetings. By

sending out a strategic agenda in advance, Xiao got the right people

to attend her meetings, while those who didn’t have to be there

were appropriately grateful. Xiao established new ground rules for

her meetings, such as no PDAs and no side conversations, and got

compliance by offering to cut meeting times in half (from 60 minutes to

30) if people agreed to follow her rules for a one-month trial period.

Xiao also started managing her emotions. For instance, when the

ideas person or the saboteur tried to take over, Xiao calmed herself,

maintained her condence, and used the agenda to keep the meeting

moving forward as planned. Almost overnight, Xiao’s meetings became

more effective. The change was so miraculous that when she passed her

rules on to Paul, another project manager struggling to hold effective

meetings, she called them the “ve magic steps”.

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CA1006 Mgmt Insights June

4. Be authoritativeToo many meeting facilitators are afraid to drive the bus and, instead,let the passengers drive. Treat your meetings like a bus route with a

schedule and agreed-upon stops. Set the time allotted for each topicin advance and keep the meeting moving forward on that schedule. Ifpeople are reluctant to move off a topic, then agree to cover the topic

outside of the meeting or at a separate meeting.

5. Use a meeting agenda templateDo not use the strategic agenda you mailed out to manage themeeting. Instead, use a one-page landscape sheet:

• At the top, have the meeting objective(s), date and time.

• Down the left-hand side, list the agenda items.

• Across the top, have these ve headings, which should all be lledin before the meeting starts:

  Objective

  Person Responsible (Filled in, unless the purpose of the

meeting is to assign a person.)

  Time

  Result 

  Due Date/Follow-Up (Filled in, unless the purpose of

the meeting is to assign a due date or follow-up date.)

As the meeting progresses, ll in any empty cells and update cells that

require change. The agenda allows you to track both your time andaccomplishments. This serves as evidence to yourself and others that

 your meetings are productive and worthwhile. Remember that theagenda is separate from the minutes, which are taken by someone elseso that you can concentrate on managing the meeting.

About the AuthorSerena Williamson, PhD, is a speaker, author, seminar

leader and coach specialising in people skills. She teaches severalLearning Tree Courses, including Course 292, “Communication

Skills: Results through Collaboration”, Course 244, “AssertivenessSkills: Communicating with Authority and Impact”, and Course344, “Effective Time Management”.

Learning Tree

Management Insights

Five Steps forSuccessful Meetings

1. E-mail a strategic agenda

well in advanceA strategic agenda has four key ingredients:

• It has a specic subject line. If the e-mail subject line says “ProjectX”, everybody who is involved in Project X will come. Specifying

what aspect of Project X the meeting addresses limits attendees tothose actually needed.

• It is sent only to those people who need to be there, not toeveryone involved in the project.

• It contains a list of the action items for the meeting.

• It contains the name of the person responsible for each item so

that they can come prepared.

If a senior decision maker is required at the meeting, sending them a

personal e-mail and following it up with a telephone call is a good idea.

2. Establish ground rulesNo matter what the norms are for your organisation, if your meetings areeffective you can establish additional ground rules. You can, for instance,forbid PDAs in the room (but allow urgent calls or e-mails to be taken

outside of the room); ban side conversations while others are speaking;expect attendees to come prepared; and start and nish at the scheduled

time. Once you establish these rules, and your meetings become moreeffective, the value of the new rules is reinforced.

3. Practise self-awarenessBefore the meeting begins (and during, if necessary), take commandof your emotional state:

• Take a few deep breaths to calm yourself.

• Engage in positive self-talk and visualisation like professionalathletes do — see yourself condent and in control of the meeting.

• Stand when making important points to give yourself the feelingof more height and power.

• If people have trouble understanding you, speak slower,summarise often, and frequently check if attendees understandthe agenda.