Skilled meeting leaders know just what to do in a variety of common meeting situations. Need your group to create some options? No problem, you are ready with an idea generation technique. How about quickly evaluating those options and ultimately arriving at a decision? Yep, you’ve got tools for that too. People behaving badly? Bring them on. This series prepares you to take on the meeting challenges you face.
How to Generate Options
One reason to call a meeting is to generate a list of options. The usual approach is to use some version of brainstorming. Everyone thinks they know how to lead this sort of meeting because they’ve participated in them. The evidence suggests otherwise.
Too often, groups rehash ideas they’ve already considered. If you are looking for fresh ideas, this session will help you understand and apply the principles that lead to innovative ideas.
How to Narrow a List of Options
When your group must focus on only a few items out of many to choose from; you need a way to quickly and easily identify the most promising choices. You can just open up the discussion for opinions about your list, but that inevitably leads to chaos.
If you prefer fast, fair, and easy; multi-voting is the way to go. This workshop shows you how to use this excellent tool to sort through your options.
How to Run a Structured Discussion
Some form of voting works great for narrowing the choices, but what happens when you have to make the final decision? The preferred method in most workplace settings is to have a discussion.
The trick is to add enough structure so that everyone feels heard. You also want to move the group as painlessly as possible to a swift conclusion. Learn how to lead this sort of discussion whenever you have to decide among the remaining, few options.
How to Deal with Meeting Troublemakers
Every meeting has a couple. There’s the person who dominates every conversation. There’s the one who is all heavy sighs and eye rolls. Some will take you off track. A few will distract you with their phones. The worst will leave you shaking in your shoes.
If only meeting participants would be on their best behavior. As you are well aware, they often are not. This session identifies the most common bad behaviors and provides you with practical ways to combat them.
How to Engage Your Meeting Attendees
Engaged meeting participants produce better results. The hard part is knowing what you can do to engage them, especially for routine staff or project update meetings.
When skillfully applied, there are a variety of principles that will keep people on the edge of their seats the whole time. Learn what they are, and start using them so that with a little practice, people might even say your meetings are fun.
How to Run a Virtual Meeting
All meetings, whether in-person or online, depend on the same core skills. When technology becomes the connection between your participants, you will need a few extra skills to keep your meeting productive.
With more people working from remote locations and tight travel budgets, virtual meetings are becoming increasingly common. This session shows you ways to be effective when your attendees aren’t in the room with you.