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Successful
Meetings
Don't Just Happen
by Dr. Barbara Joyce Frank
Published as
"Facilitators:
A meeting facilitator explains how her job
is crucial to the meeting
process" in
The Complete Event and
Meeting Planner, Fall/Winter 2000/2001.
The
sales team is not performing well; communications between different
departments is far from optimal;
a major change at the senior management
level calls
for adjustments in mid-management-all good reasons
to call a
meeting.
People are gathered and sequestered for a day.
Logistical arrangements
for the meeting room, food
and audiovisual equipment are handled
flawlessly by planners. Yet, instead of getting the results so
urgently
needed, the meeting becomes a griping session
and people leave
disgruntled. The meeting is perceived
by all to be a waste of time,
money and effort.
What went wrong and what can be done so that future meetings are
productive events?
Meeting facilitators believe the answer lies in
strategically designing
the meeting and facilitating the
process throughout the planning,
implementation,
evaluation and follow-up stages. Facilitators are
professional organizational consultants who specialize
in meeting
process and differ from planners who
concentrate on the logistics of a
meeting.
The pre-meeting stage
In the pre-meeting stage, meeting facilitators work
with their client on
the purpose and goals of the meeting. Meeting participants need to be
very clear as to why
they are being assembled and what is expected of
them
by the end of the meeting. If this is not the case, then attendees
often use the opportunity to vent their
frustrations about work in
general.
When the specific purpose and goals of the
meeting
are unclear, valuable time will be spent at the meeting
trying
to determine in a group exactly why the meeting
is being held. Needless to say, this does not reflect well
on the person who called the meeting.
Once the purpose and goals
for the meeting are well articulated, then attention is directed to
selection of the participants. The list of invitees needs to be based on
the purpose and goals of the meeting.
For example, if the purpose of the meeting is to
get buy-in from all
departments in a particular division, then representatives of sufficient authority
from all departments of the division need to be at the meeting; if a
project is being planned and will require
funding then the person
holding the purse strings
needs to be present, etc.
Once the list of
participants has been carefully
chosen, the meeting facilitator may need
to talk to participants before the meeting to assure that they
are on
board with respect to the purpose and goals
of this particular meeting.
Participants will be
discouraged from bringing up matters not relevant
to this meeting. In this way, the meeting will start
on a clear positive
note and the chances that the
meeting will be derailed are minimized.
The next critical
aspect of the meeting is the agenda.
An appropriate agenda will be designed to achieve the
desired results by
the end of the meeting. A mistake
made in many meetings is that too much
time is spent
on "old business" leaving "new business" to the later
part
of the day when participants are focused on
going home. Standard format
used for meetings has
been for people to sit around the table with the
person
in charge going through each agenda item. This tends
to be boring
and a poor utilization of the creative
energies of the participants.
A more dynamic agenda is one
whereby much of the
work is done in small interactive groups. These
groups will be given specific topics to work on
related to the goals of
the meeting. The small groups
will report their ideas back to the whole
group and
then the larger group will work together to achieve the
desired results. This methodology minimizes the
tendency for individuals
to champion their own
ideas and builds instead a group dynamic and
hopefully a group buy-in at the end.
Often the client feels he/she should "run" the meeting. Although this
certainly is possible, it is not necessarily desirable. The meeting
facilitator as a neutral entity
can often more easily direct the process
throughout
the meeting. In addition, the client is then free
to
participate in one of the smaller groups and
become a part of the group
process.
At the end of the
meeting, the facilitator will move
towards closure and assure that
commitments are
gained from the participants for future action.
Following the meeting, the meeting facilitator can
conduct an evaluation
of the meeting if desired. Also the client may request that the
facilitator check in with participants two to three weeks following the
meeting to determine their progress on their commitments.
Employing a meeting
facilitator will increase the likelihood of productive meetings.
Are their services worth the added expense? Meetings
are the way
business is done and the success of business relies on effective
meetings. In this fast-paced stressful working environment, highly paid
professionals travel
great distances at considerable company expense
and
expend valuable time in meetings. To hire a
professional skilled in the
meeting process to ensure
that these human and financial resources are
effectively utilized and desired results are achieved
makes strategic
and budgetary sense.
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Dr. Frank,
Founder of
Meeting Oasis and
Team Performance Expert,
offers
team
building &
facilitation
upon request |
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Place Matters
Location's Effect on
Productivity
by Barbara Joyce Frank, Ph.D.
Published in Reston
Chamber of Commerce Business Update, July 26, 2000
"Where should we hold the
meeting?" is a question often asked and frequently
answered with the easiest logistical solution: the
same old conference room down the hall or at the
same old hotel. Under these conditions, it is no
wonder participants show up with the same old
attitude.
Read more...
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