Sometimes it’s hard to focus in a meeting. We’re distracted, tired, hangry, concerned about other things. It may be tempting to power through, but there are simple practices that can help us bring energy into the meeting and enhance our productivity. When we adapt to people’s needs – whether physical, social or psychological – we can get more accomplished during a meeting.
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Think about the last time you showed up for a meeting.
Did the group leader take a moment and review why the group was gathered? Did she summarize what had been agreed upon at the last meeting and what needed to be accomplished at this one? No? How did that meeting go? When a group meets, it pays to devote two to three minutes at the start of every meeting to recap previous efforts and share a vision for the future. This does not mean you revisit the previous meeting’s entire agenda. Projects would never move forward if you did that. But taking a few minutes to share where things are at or what has happened since the last meeting can be beneficial. To be clear, a recap is different than sending out meeting notes or minutes (which should be distributed after each gathering). But if you assume that everyone in the meeting has read the previous meeting notes, you are likely to be disappointed. (No judgment here. It’s reality.) Even if everyone reads the notes and were at the last meeting, they will appreciate a reminder of what is going on, where things are headed, and what needs to be done. After all, people make better decisions when they have context for the questions, needs, or purpose. Start your recap with a statement of purpose, declare why you are meeting. Dignify past efforts by briefly providing the facts: the who, what, when, why. Let them know what needs attention and action today. This statement can be part of each agenda and read by someone at the start of each meeting. The brief summary allows everyone to move as a team and step into the role of decision maker. It serves as a friendly reminder of why the group has gathered and keeps everyone focused on what is important at the moment. There’s another way to look at it is like this. To move forward as a team, you should: Identify purpose + Summarize steps taken + Identify desired outcome If you want to make progress, it’s always worth taking a step or two backwards to recap. – Anita A few years ago my daughter Olivia was attending a week-long foreign language camp for the first time. A week! They were going to mostly speak Norwegian! Dad was nervous: how in the world was she going to make friends?
My wife and I helped her arrange her things in the cabin and completed the final check-in at the medical station. As we prepared to leave, Olivia ran up the steps to grab something from her bunk. She was back in less than 60 seconds. “You guys should go now. I made a friend while I was upstairs,” she said. Making the First Move In the work world, it’s tougher to make friends this fast. As we go about our work, we all run into situations where we need to initiate contact with people we may not know well. There are times when we need to bring a group together that hasn’t gathered before. To help warm up the conversation, we often turn to icebreakers. After all, taking time for deliberate activities leads to a more cohesive group and people learn more when they feel connected. Yet, we’ve all been in situations where an activity certainly didn’t help to break the ice and, in fact, may have even chilled the room. Time and time again, I’ve learned that icebreakers tend to produce results equivalent to the thought put into designing them. In other words, choosing an ice breaker as you walk down the hall to the conference room is not going to end well. Just because a get-to-know-you activity worked well with one group does not mean it will be a good fit with the next one. Choosing the right type of icebreaker is vital. Fun and Games Icebreakers Ice breaker games can be the most fun, but they also can be the most stress-inducing for some participants. This type of activity works best when you have a group gathering for a social purpose, or if you already know most of the personalities in the room. The goal of this ice breaker is to bring some fun and offer a welcome break during long meetings or training sessions. Some games: Two Truths and One Lie: This icebreaker is usually quite popular. Each participant in the group says three things about themselves — two are true and one is a lie. The other participants guess which one is the lie and share why they think so. The Best Week of the Year: Each year I refer to the week my family spends at a rented lake cabin as “Best Week of the Year.” What would your best week consist of? Finish the Sentence: Write sentence starters on slips of paper and place these in a bowl, basket, or bag. Have adults sit in a circle. One person pulls a slip, reads the sentence starter, and completes it. Some sample starters:
Introduction Icebreakers This type of gathering activity gets names out into the open plus some snippets of information that help make a connection. The size of your group probably determines what type of activity you do here. One of my favorites for larger groups is the “2 Minute Circle.” For this activity, pair people off and then form two circles, with one partner of each group on the inside circle, facing the other partner. Each pair shares their name and something about themselves. Then, after two minutes, the inside circle rotates one person to the left. I attend a weekly meeting where we introduce ourselves like this each time. We often share some piece of info that is related to the week’s topic. Recently, the speaker was talking about a local beer and burgers festival. We were told to introduce ourselves and share our favorite beer or burger. I had a nice conversation that day with Mark, who simply liked my answer: “My favorite beer is whatever one I’m drinking while I grill burgers in my backyard.” Insightful Icebreakers This icebreaker is best when you want to get directly relevant information from participants. With this type of activity, I have always found it useful to establish one firm ground rule: this is NOT a time for discussion. It IS everyone’s opportunity to share their thoughts. I often think back to staff meetings I led and wish I had, even in that small group that knew each other well, opened with activities like this. As a meeting leader, the insightful icebreaker allows you to check the temperature in the room right when you start. I usually ask participants to provide three things: their name and department/organization, what they hope to get out of the day, and what is the most interesting thing that COULD happen as a result of the meeting. An example: “My name is Sean Kelly, with Reach Partners. I hope that we walk out of here today with a firm vision of what our priorities over the next six months should be. My wildest hope is that we come up with an idea for a plan that includes more sidewalk cafes under brightly colored awnings . . . because my daughter and I love to visit places like that! If we did, I could tell her ‘Dad helped make this happen!’” Right there is everything you can hope for in an icebreaker: you know who’s talking and conversation can flow from it. You might even remember who said it. After all, who doesn’t want to be the guy who wants bring colorful awnings downtown to make his daughter happy? Choose the right icebreaker and you just might be him. —Sean There are few things worse in business than showing up for a meeting that has been poorly planned. You don’t know why you’re there or what needs to be accomplished. The organizer either hasn’t taken time to plan the purpose or – perhaps – hasn’t bothered to share the purpose with those around the table.
The solution to this problem is easy, people: Write an agenda. Send an agenda ahead of time. Print an agenda. (And, yes, you should do all three). It may seem like a lot of pre-work, but every time you write and appropriately share an agenda, you’ll thank yourself. Here’s why: Provides Direction An agenda is a mini-plan. It’s a small step in a larger plan that provides structure and direction. And, frankly, it also keeps teams focused on priorities. Without an agenda, you’ll be less productive. You’ll have co-workers who get off topic and spend 20 minutes rehashing what happened over the weekend. Then you’ll spend 30 minutes agonizing over the color of flowers in a centerpiece when you really needed to decide the lunch menu. The weekly staff meetings at Reach Partners have a set agenda. I think of agenda topics more like buckets. The specific items under each bucket change weekly, but we are always focused on our three major priorities: financials, marketing, and workload. Without a clear agenda, it is too easy to discuss things that don’t matter. Saves Time (and Resources) Nobody wants to meet for the purpose of meeting. A good agenda saves time and respects stakeholders’ time commitment. Since there’s a purpose and people know what it is, they are less likely to regret coming. In addition, a good agenda lists a start time and an end time, so people know what they are committing to beforehand. Time is money and meetings are expensive. If you have 10 people attending a meeting and each person’s wage is $25 an hour, it costs $250 for every hour that group meets. An agenda helps make the most of that time. I’ve been part of meetings where the project lead dismissed people after agenda items that pertained to them were done. At first it felt harsh and abrupt, but I’ve changed my mind. This person was giving people the gift of time. If the rest of the meeting didn’t pertain to them, they could be doing something more productive. Encourages Engagement The general purpose of any meeting is to get a group of people together for some focused reason. The underlying premise is that each person invited has expertise to share or important opinions to be expressed. An agenda sent ahead of time (no later than three days before the meeting) gives each stakeholder an opportunity to review, think, research and prepare. You want people to be engaged during the meeting, and there is a better chance of that if attendees know what to expect. Without an agenda, attendees may be asked questions that they didn’t prepare for. Or the group isn’t prepared for the discussion you wanted to have or didn’t bring the data needed to support meaningful conversation. An agenda sent ahead of time is more useful than one provided when you walk in the door. However, neglecting to send an agenda ahead of time doesn’t give you permission to not have one at all. A late agenda is better than no agenda at all. Defines Next Steps At the end of a recent meeting, I reached the last item on the agenda: review responsibilities. “John,” I said. “You are doing _______.” John quickly responded: “Oh, yes. I’m going to write that down.” Include a quick “review” item at the end of every agenda. That plus a brief recap of the previous meeting at the beginning of every meeting put everyone on the same page quickly. We are more successful when we all know what’s going on, where things are headed, and what needs to be done. In summary, I’ve never seen a meeting without an agenda go well. If I don’t know how to prepare or who will be attending, it feels like a waste of time. Of course, an agenda doesn’t mean that the meeting has to be stuffy or formal. You can still have fun and share a story or two. Flexibility is allowed. Just keep your meeting purposeful and focused. Everyone will thank you. –Anita “Hi, Sean. It’s Tom, Tom Brokaw. Just checking in to see if I can start my newscast on time. Are you still on schedule up there in Fargo?”
During 25 years in television . . . and thousands of daily newscasts . . . I never received that phone call from Tom Brokaw. Still, every day my team started and ended its newscasts on time, right down to the second. So did Tom and his team. If there’s any enduring lesson I carry from those days, it is to be on time. Always. Truth be told, being on time means more than starting on time (never underestimate the value of ending on time), but let’s start at the beginning. It’s tempting to be flexible with start times. After all, who doesn’t feel obligated to wait for a latecomer or open to letting a crowd socialize a few more minutes. And yet, the effort it takes to be prompt pays off every single time. As project managers, we call and lead meetings because there is a project or process underway. We need everyone around the table engaged. For a meeting to have value, everyone in the room needs to feel empowered to give advice, insight, direction, feedback, criticism. As event managers, we may be in charge of the flow for the day. Whether someone’s in a meeting or at an event, they need to feel valued. By starting promptly, you immediately send a message that the gathering is worthwhile and that you value the people who are attending. By starting on time, you immediately tell everyone in the room: “You are important. Let’s not waste your time.” The single most consistent way I know to demonstrate how I value someone is to pay attention to her. When a meeting or event starts on time, you can see how a person’s body language responds. You will observe satisfied nods, eye contact, and a more energetic posture. This stands in stark contrast to the body language shown during meetings or events that don’t start on time. In these scenarios, people drift in and settle into a chair before getting up again to refill their water or coffee. As the appointed start time slides by, they look at their phones (or watches) and start to engage in something else. It’s like watching a balloon deflate. Pfffffftttttt. Flat. Uninspired. Unworthy. Starting on time is the ultimate strong opening move. It sets the tone that you are in control and have expectations. It’s a rah-rah step: “Let’s go, team! You are here because this is work or a topic we care about together.” Starting a meeting on time has the additional benefit of assuring those around you that you are a good steward of resources. After all, if you value time, more than likely you also are careful steward of financial and human resources. At Reach Partners, we often stand side-by-side with volunteers or client staff as they gather to take that next meaningful step. When people walk into a room and immediately sense direction and purpose, they engage. When they engage right away, the process is more efficient and smoother; the experience is more joyful, the final outcome better. Think about it in these terms. If your office has motion-sensitive lighting, the lights turn off when there’s no noticeable activity in the conference room. The same thing happens in a meeting. If there’s no momentum, if nothing has started, attendees shut down. Trust me, once someone in a meeting shuts down, it takes more than an arm wave in the air to get their attention again. It might even take more than doughnuts. Leave people sitting too long and they will inevitably do the thing we feared the most in television: they will tune you out . . . and it’s awfully hard to get them to tune back in. —Sean When a group of people gather to serve on a board, committee or coalition, a best practice of the convener is to devote 2-3 minutes at the start of each meeting to recap previous efforts and share the vision towards progress. As a leader the group you have the opportunity to create a positive environment for work and expectations.
People make better decisions when they have context for the question, need or purpose. Start with a statement of purpose, declare the meaning in why are you meeting. Dignify past efforts, ever so briefly provide the facts: the who, the what, the why or when. Finally, prepare your people to be decision makers. Let them know what needs attention and motion today. A brief summary at the start allows everyone to move as a team and step into the role of decision maker. Anita, Reach Partners It is not the norm to find healthy food options at group events and meetings. As event planners, we have some control in the foods offered and can effect good change if and when better choices and healthier foods are offered. I suggest that you start slow. Begin with little changes rather than go straight from donuts to fresh fruit - the shock will turn people against you. For example, a group meets monthly in the morning with donuts and jumbo muffins, step 1: reduce the number of donuts , provide mini-muffins, granola bars, a small bowl of fresh fruit and make sure water is plentiful. Then, after a few meetings or as the group gets used to the changes in the menu, move to step 2: skip the donuts, reduce the number of muffins, add string cheese and increase the fruit. After time, your people will learn to expect better choices on those mornings. People, food is not needed at EVERY break. I can hear the gasps! A mid-morning or mid-afternoon physical activity break can happen in place of food. Provide a guided activity, or let people stretch, network, run to the restroom or check a blog. Often, lunch is just around the corner. Read below for other suggestions or take a look at this healthy food planning resource for group gatherings. Anita, Reach Partners
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