L09: Meetings: Leadership and productivity

 

 

            Communication purpose and strategy should come first in planning meetings, as in all communication situations. You need to define a clear purpose and analyze your audience to determine whether a meeting is the best forum for what you want to accomplish.

 

            To ensure that meeting are productive, we must conduct the necessary planning by clarifying purpose and expected outcome, determining topic for the agenda, selecting attendees, considering the setting, determining when to meet, establishing needed meeting information.

 

            If leader have done so beforehand, they should announce at the start of the meeting the decision-making approach that they plan to use, clarify leader and attendee roles and responsibilities, establish meeting ground rules, and use common problem-solving tools.

 

            Completing the essential planning
            - Clarifying purpose and wxpected outcome
            - Determining topics for the agenda. In determining the agenda topics and the meeting tasks, you will want to estimate the time it will take to cover each topic or, more important, to accomplish each objective.
            - Selecting Attendees selecting the right attendees is important to the success of a meeting.
            - Considering the setting the setting considerations should include location, equipment, and layout of the room.
            - Determining when to meet to accomplish your goals, you want people when they are at their best.
            - Establishing needed meeting information

            The primary responsibilities of a meeting leader are to plan the meeting, provide the content, anticipate problems, and ensure process facilitation. Fulfilling the last responsibility may call for the use of a skilled facilitator.

 

Question

1. What to do before a meeting?

            A large part of what makes a meeting successful occurs in the preparation phase. Although it may vary by committee, department or unit, there are seven key responsibilities expected of chairs or team leaders before a meeting takes place. Each is explained in detail below.

            1. Clarify purpose and aims     5. Circulate supporting information in advance

            2. Create an agenda                6. Make room arrangements

            3. Schedule the meeting          7. Arrange for recorder

            4. Post and send out agenda

 

2. How to avoid conflicts in meetings?

            The best way to avoid conflicts in your meetings is to prepare properly, taking all factors into consideration. It's particularly important to make sure your expectations match what the group is capable of handling. Know yourself, and your team, well enough so that you're aware of tensions that may exist between people – and have strategies in place to deal with them.

 

            If anger and conflict arise, move back to your agenda by questioning people to determine the immediate cause of the conflict. Develop questions to get people to clearly state their problems and issues. By doing this, you'll guide people back to rational thinking, focus group energy, and encourage learning and problem solving.

 

3. What the Seven Deadly Sins of Meeting?

            1. People don’t take meetings seriously.

            2. Meetings are too long.

            3. People wander off the topic.

            4. Nothing happens once the meeting ends.

            5. People don’t tell the truth.

            6. Meetings are always missing important information, so they postpone critical decisions.

            7. Meetings never get better.