ETR How to Have a Great Meeting
-
Upload
tata-sarabanda -
Category
Documents
-
view
215 -
download
0
Transcript of ETR How to Have a Great Meeting
-
7/28/2019 ETR How to Have a Great Meeting
1/5
How to Have a great Meeting
Control Your Time
Time is more valuable than money. You can never get it back. And it's running
out on us every day. That makes every useless, boring, or inefficient meeting
all the more of a problem. We must eliminate the unnecessary and improve
the essential. I worked with Matt Smith, ETR's Publisher and a man who runs
many meetings every day, to come up with the exact blueprint you need to
have a great meeting, every time.
Craig Ballantyne
"Clarity is 95 percent of success." - Brian Tracy
==============================================
=======
How to Have a Great Meeting
By Matt Smith and Craig Ballantyne
Think back to a time where you had to sit through a boring, wasteful meeting.
Maybe you've had one already today.
Recently my friend, BK, told me about a nightmare meeting he experienced
with high-paid television studio executives where he's consulting on a TV
show.
"It was the worst meeting ever," he said. "What a complete waste of time."
I asked him to elaborate on what happened.
-
7/28/2019 ETR How to Have a Great Meeting
2/5
"It all went wrong before it even began because no one was prepared. There
was no set agenda, no set objective, and no one had any idea of when their
mission would be accomplished. That invited the 'idea fairy' to show up and a
whole bunch of stupid ideas to surface," he explained with exasperation. It
was a case of "too many chefs in the kitchen making for an unproductive
restaurant".
The meeting resulted in three wasted hours that those highly paid experts
will never get back. The cumulative loss of time, money, and opportunity was
well into the tens of thousand of dollars. It happens at the largest
organizations, at every level, and even your local community organizations.
But the problems can be fixed. The idea fairy can be banished. A little
preparation, in terms of both the attendees and the planned outcome, will
make a huge difference in your meetings and ultimately in the success of
your day and your business.
As Matt Smith says, running meetings well is a skill.
Step #1 - Limit the Meeting to the Right People
The importance of having all the right people and none of the wrong people
in the meeting cannot be overstated.
Every person in the room should be there for a specific reason. If you can't
look around the room and explain very succinctly why each person is there
then you're wasting someone's time and potentially everyone's time. Each
person should either contribute to specific decisions that are expected to be
made -OR- take the action required after the meeting ends. Identify and
eliminate the people who don't contribute to either of these causes. Having
someone in the room to generate ideas isn't enough of a reason. Consult with
them before the meeting begins in your preparation.
Step #2 - The Meeting Must Have a Very Clear Leader
-
7/28/2019 ETR How to Have a Great Meeting
3/5
The meeting leader is not an assumed role. It should be clearly stated in
advance so the leader can properly prepare.
The meeting leader must know what the primary activity is for the meeting in
general and must drive forward the agenda. They must keep the meeting
focused and moving. The purpose of having a meeting can usually be boiled
down to one (or a combination) of the four things below.
1) Making Decisions
2) Planning
3) Information sharing: One to Many
4) Information sharing: Brainstorming/Problem Solving
The meeting driver must know where they are in relation to the agenda,
meeting objectives, and what activity would best serve that end at any point
in the meeting.
Step #3 - Have Measurable Outcomes (M/O)
Every meeting must have a stated measurable outcome.
"By the end of this meeting we will have decided X and Y, we'll appoint a
driver to take responsibility for Y and we'll put together a rough timeline for
when Y will be launched."
It's a good idea to state the M/O before the meeting starts and at the end of
the meeting make sure everyone agrees that the M/O has been
accomplished. Be clear and concise. For example:
-
7/28/2019 ETR How to Have a Great Meeting
4/5
"We have a lot of membership renewals coming due and we want to improve
the retention rate of our subscribers. To do this, we are going to test email
reminders compared to the postcards we use now. So, the purpose of this
meeting is to decide how we're going to roll this test out."
"The Measurable Objective for the meeting is this: By the end of the meeting
we'll know exactly what we want to test. We'll decide on an approach to the
copy that we'll be testing. We'll know what logistically is required to pull off
the test and we'll assign specific tasks to individuals to execute the test."
Matt will often write the M/O on a flip chart or white board where everyone
sees it throughout the meeting. State the M/O at the beginning of the
meeting to focus you and everyone else in the room on the goal of the
meeting.
This will keep you on track and everyone will feel that it was a productive use
of their time when at the end of the meeting they see the M/O was achieved.
Step #4 - Stay Focused
In every meeting there will be times where the conversation will start to drift
into side conversations that are irrelevant to the M/O. When this happens, the
meeting driver must gently interrupt the conversation and bring everyone
back to the decision you are trying to make. Be gentle, but firm.
Step #5 - End with a Plan and Give People Specific Assignments
Once decisions have been made, it's time to assign follow-up work to meeting
members. Be specific. Make sure that each team member completely
understands their objectives and can verbally restate them to the meeting
driver along with the deadline for the delivery of the work.
-
7/28/2019 ETR How to Have a Great Meeting
5/5
Someone should write up a summary email that restates the tasks, owners,
and due dates.
Having a clear and concise plan makes sure the benefits of the meeting are
not lost in the day-to-day shuffle of busy work. Only after this is the meeting
wrapped up.
Efficiently planned meetings will respect everyone's time and propel the
business forward. Start by having only the relevant team members attend the
meeting. Be clear about the agenda and the measurable outcomes. Stay
focused. Make decisions. And eliminate unnecessary conversations. Once
decisions have been made, assign work specifically to individuals and get
confirmation that they understand both their objectives and the deadline for
their work. Don't leave unsettled decisions unless it cannot be avoided.
Follow that simple blueprint and you'll maximize your meeting time. You'll get
three times as much work done and dramatically increase your productivity.
You'll no longer be a high priced executive with their time wasted. Instead,
you'll just be high-paid.