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How To Outline A Meeting

∞ posted 9 months ago in Business Meetings contains 8 notes

by Randy Clark

Last month, we posted two blogs on conducting meetings: How to conduct 3 Easy Meeting Styles, and
12 Steps To Planning A Meeting, where step one was to outline the meeting. By creating an outline, you’ll have a better idea of what you want to discuss, how long it will take, and who will be involved. Keep in mind, content is what matters — not pretty notes.

A few readers asked for outline examples. Below is a simple meeting outline. Use it or make your own — what’s important is to plan your meeting. Even the best extemporaneous speakers may ramble, lecture, and get off subject without a plan.

Choose subject matter
For example, review training material, policies, procedures, and results. Recognize exemplary behavior and introduce new products, contests, goals, etc. Another idea is to share inspirational and motivational material. 
 
Decide on a meeting style
Will it be educational, motivational, humorous, or a combination?

Implement the style
It could be role-play, fill in the blank, or review. Other examples might include a game, a challenge, or a guest speaker.

Consider the relevant points
What should stand out? What should the attendees take away? Most topics should include activities to improve, continue, begin, or eliminate.
 
Determine whom you will call upon
I often prepare a team member by asking a meeting question before the meeting. This way, I may determine if they are prepared to be called upon.

Share the benefits
What will the meeting do for them? This is what motivates most of us. It could be money, recognition, advancement, job satisfaction, workload, or schedule.

Plan a commitment
Ask the team members to commit to following the activities outlined in the meeting. Consider asking each individual what they got out of the meeting and how they will use this.

 
Meeting Outline

Date ________________________

Time to Start ________ End ______


1. Subject ___________________________________________

2. Style     ___________________________________________

3. Activities to improve, continue, begin or eliminate
             ___________________________________________ 
             ___________________________________________
             ___________________________________________
             ___________________________________________
             ___________________________________________

4. Teammates to engage                    Subject, question
              ________________              ____________________
              ________________              ____________________
              ________________              ____________________
              ________________              ____________________
       

5. How this benefits the team or individual team members
             ____________________________________________
             ____________________________________________
             ____________________________________________
             ____________________________________________
          
6. Commitment to following the activities. 
             ____________________________________________
             ____________________________________________                          
             ____________________________________________  
             ____________________________________________

Ask yourself the following after the meeting to evaluate your performance.

·    What worked and why?
·    What didn’t work and why?
·    What needs improved?
·    What was learned?
·    Where should focus be concentrated?
·    What was accomplished?
·    Ask a trusted team member for their input


Manage The Activities, Not The Results
When planning your meeting, keep in mind the results are history — you can’t change the past. Hopefully, though, you’ll learn from the past. To change the future, you have to change activities. You need to understand what needs improved, and recognize activities to repeat. Don’t allow luck to be credited for success. Seneca, a first century Roman philosopher said, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” When planning the meeting, consider the following:

·    Activities to repeat
·    Activities to begin
·    Activities to improve
·    Activities to eliminate
·    Activities to reintroduce

Linda Carmady, the past President of the central Indiana BBB, had an ingenious solution to a common activity-related problem when successful activities mysteriously discontinue. Linda instituted a scheduled review of activities. The team would decide if activities were to be continued, thus focusing the team on the activities. 

Don’t Lecture – Plan Engagement                                             
A common meeting-conducting mistake is lecturing, as in, talking at the audience, not with them. Most of us are not sufficiently engaging and entertaining enough to hold the team’s undivided attention for 30 minutes of chatter. Have you been on the other side of one of these lectures? Were you bored? Did you drift off? Avoid lecturing by planning. Plan who to question and what questions to ask. Consider how to involve and engage the team. Learn to use questions instead of statements. Instead of lecturing about how a thing-a-ma-jiggy is made, ask someone how it’s made. Instead of reading through a manual, ask someone the points in the manual. Learn to use open-ended questions. Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?

Choose Your Audience
An installation manager planned a weekly crew leader meeting around a reoccurring problem. The problem was caused when specific procedures were not followed. He had discussed this subject previously, and it was becoming difficult to keep this topic positive. I asked how many crew leaders didn’t follow the procedure, and he said, “two.” Don’t give a meeting to everyone that is only aimed at a few. This will be negative, boring — and for many — a waste the time. Conduct a separate meeting for the offenders. Don’t waste the time of those who do it right, work with those who need the help.
                                              
I Think I’ve Said This Before…  
Don’t be afraid to repeat meetings. You should expect to repeat meetings. Most people don’t “get it” in one meeting. I only retain a small portion of any meeting. It’s good to repeat — it will improve your team. You don’t have to come up with something new every meeting!
                                                          
The Secret – How To Improve Your Presenting Skills
I recently heard, “Most people practice something until they get it right. Professionals practice until they cannot get it wrong!” My point is to practice. To this day, I isolate myself and rehearse meetings, and I’ve conducted meetings for … well, a long time! Practice. When you mess up, don’t give up. You’re going to make mistakes. Practice and you will improve!

How to Conduct 3 Easy Styles of Meetings

∞ posted 9 months ago in Meetings Business Meetings contains 10 notes

by Randy Clark

A couple weeks ago, I posted 12 Steps to Planning a Meeting.
Several people asked for more information, so here you go —

I believe the primary purpose of a group meeting is to prepare your team for the challenges of the day. Secondary purposes of developing camaraderie, encouraging team cohesion, reinforcing education, giving recognition, reviewing plans, and setting policies are also important. At the end of every meeting, you should ask yourself:

·    Who gained something from this meeting?
·    Is the team ready to take on the challenges of the day?
·    Have I prepared them for the day, or have I wasted valuable time?
·    What meeting skill can I improve?

As a young man, I sold Volkswagens. I loved the cars and the corporate philosophy. The dealership where I worked held “sales” meetings every morning. Unfortunately, the sales manager used the time to complain. He complained about where cars were parked, keys hung, brochures stacked, etc. Although these complaints had merit, they did not prepare the sales staff to enthusiastically greet customers.

Let’s Review Three Meeting Styles
·    Educational Meetings
·    Humorous Meetings
·    Cheerleading (rah-rah) Meetings

An effective meeting could use any combination of these styles. Some presenters are good with all three, while others struggle. You don’t have to be good with all three styles! For example, you would excel at group meetings if you gave nothing but well-planned, well-executed educational meetings.

Educational Meetings
Role-Play
Managers in production, installation, IT, sales, and marketing can use this plan, enacting role-play meetings. It is one of the most effective techniques, and it can be used repeatedly.
 1. Choose one procedure to improve
 2. Show your team how to execute the procedure correctly
 3. Allow your team to execute the procedure

Allow your team the time to complete the procedure correctly, or plan to carry over the meeting. If an individual struggles, consider planned follow-up training for him or her. Role-play is not limited to verbal. Be creative; it can be hands-on, such as how to install, repair, create, and more. Point two does not have to be you, it can be any competent team member.

Quizzes
Keep quizzes simple and on one topic. Use what you like. True or false, multiple choice, essay, etc.

Fill In The Blanks
Use existing training information, but omit a few key words and phrases to be filled in as you lead the group in discussion. 

Basic Training
Whatever you have as initial new hire training, repeat it, repeat it again, repeat it some more, and repeat it often. Did I say repeat it? I believe you will be surprised and rewarded by discovering what was not retained.

Follow-up Training
Consider this advanced training. Hopefully, you didn’t try to cover all contingencies in the initial basic training. You might survey the team to discover where they need help.

 
Humorous Meetings
Okay, this is not for everyone, but it may be easier than you think. The humor must be appropriate, never attacking or downgrading, and not innuendo. It should be on-subject. Having fun at work does not have to be unproductive. Humor often improves team spirit and enthusiasm.

Game Show
Take any current game show format and replace the questions with questions relevant to your meeting, industry, or organization.

Hold a Challenge or Contest
Contests can be one-on-one or team vs. team. They can be based on quality, production, overall performance, etc. The prize doesn’t have to be extravagant; pride may be the best prize of all! Something as simple as a #Winning ribbon may be more effective than you think. 

Stage a Trial
Assign an attorney and a prosecutor. You’re the judge and the group is the jury. Try catching people doing things right, like following procedure. “How do you plea?”

Theme Meetings
Theme it around holidays and seasons. Dress up for Halloween. Have a 50’s or hippie meeting or day. You or one of your team members dress as a prospect or customer and role-play the interaction. Conduct a summer meeting outdoors.   

Cheerleading (rah-rah) Meetings
Some leaders are naturals; however, their results are often due to practice. Most of us enjoy hearing about ourselves. So, take every available opportunity to recognize positive behavior. We all like recognition and hearing our name. Try this – every time you recognize a group, or individual, simply add, “Let’s give them a hand!” while applauding enthusiastically.
 
Team Slogans
At the beginning and/or end of meetings, use a group slogan such as, “Go team,” “Team first,” or “we’re #1,” etc. Be creative. I know a team of positive producers whose daily end-of-meeting slogan is, “Don’t suck!”

Call and Response
Call out questions for which the team has a planned response like, “Who’s the best team?” I observed a team that had preplanned responses for each of several products they marketed.

Rewards
Show your team the rewards of excellence, be it financial rewards, job satisfaction, advancement, etc. Explain the activities needed to excel, then show your team how it benefits them.      

Would you like more information? If you know me, you know I can talk — a lot.  Tweet me @randyclarktko, or call: 317-271-1398.

Look for a future post about using and creating a meeting outline.      

Poorly Planned Meeting Plans

∞ posted 1 year ago in Business meetings Planning Panning meetings

by Randy Clark

In my previous time management/time waster posts, I included interruptions, procrastination, and prioritization. Today, I’ll talk about poor planning and ineffective meetings. The proverb, “He who fails to plan, plans to fail,” warns us of the significance of planning to our success. Poor, little, or no planning is also a huge time waster.

BTW, it’s video day at the ole’ Brandwire Blog… enjoy!

Poor planning
Tackling a project without proper planning will, at least, prolong the project, if not, cause it to fail. Check out this example of a poor plan that does not achieve the desired result (my cat, Patty, likes this video).

Another example of poor planning is not creating clear organizational goals. Another is creating goals, without the required training to reach those goals. Creating goals without training is nearly the same as having no goals. Steven Covey says it better in this video. The same can be said for a lack of policies (what), procedures (how), missions (why), and vision (where we are going). If your organization does not have these in place, establish them. (If you would like ideas on how to get started, contact me.)

Consider these two points when evaluating your time and planning
• Unrealistic timeframes may lead to rushing the project, which often causes mistakes. When mistakes are made, time is wasted with “do-overs.”
• Messy work areas and useless, outdated papers, piled high, may interfere with the planning process (Do you really need those notes from 2007?).

Ineffective meetings
Unplanned or poorly planned meetings are almost always a time waster. Impromptu meetings easily become unfocused (think Steve Carell in The Office). The number of attendees multiplies the time wasted in unplanned meetings.

Survey says… two of the top five time wasters are — drum roll please — too many meetings, and meetings that are too long. What’s worse than an elongated meeting is a meeting that is not needed at all. A friend texted me last week on the way to a pre-staff meeting – that’s a meeting about a meeting!

According to a 2005 Microsoft survey, people in the U.S. spend 5.5 hours each week in meetings; 71 percent feel meetings aren’t productive. Unneeded team members involved in the meeting are another waste of time. Monologues with no participation from the group will bore others to distraction, which counts as a waste of time. Scheduling a lot of meetings may seem productive, but too often, it is the opposite.

So how do you plan your meetings? Do you have effective, shared goals, and how was this accomplished? How much time do you spend in meetings, and how productive are the meetings? And, of course, I’d love to hear your humorous or horrific meeting stories!

The next time management post will begin a series about time savers. Is that a sci-fi series? Tom Terrific and the time savers to the rescue… cue… cue… cue!