Natural Born Facilitator

Some people are just really good at meeting facilitation. They appear to naturally understand how to lay out expectations, read the group when a change is needed, move people along respectfully and draw out the voices of quiet members. Can we provide facilitator training to create effective meeting facilitators? Or is this something that we naturally just get or don't get? I think it's got to be some of both.

Agenda as metaphor for work plan

Those of you who know me know that I love to think and talk about meeting agendas and work plans. I realized today that for me, an agenda is a good metaphor for a work plan. A good agenda lays out a purpose for the meeting, what needs to get accomplished, is appropriate related to the resources available, engages everyone at the table, and has a clear goal that can be achieved. And sometimes includes an evaluation at the end. HEY! Just like a good work plan.

PowerPoint

I happen to enjoy PowerPoint. I like the endless permutations of slide designs, options for audio and video, photos, links, words. But let's consider what is the best use of PowerPoint and when it's best to leave it out. Your meeting requires a more formal presentation of content to a group large enough to warrant a presentation projected in the front of the room? Go for it. A colleauge at the AIDS Foundation of Chicago's use of PowerPoint is so brilliant, engaging and worthwhile that I don't know that I'd ever turn away from his use of this tool. On the other hand, does your meeting involve a small group of people that may be much better engaged by actually looking at each other in the eye from across the table? Leave the PowerPoint out.

Transformation?

Can changing the way a meeting is structured, facilitated, etc., mean transformational change for an organization? I'd like to think so. Meetings are often the way we communicate with each other in our workplaces. They can be one way to get real work done. I believe if we structured our meetings to be strategic, shared power amongst the members and held ourselves accountable for meaningful results, we could create real change.

Bad apple

We've all been in meetings with a "bad apple." That one person who turns the meeting sour, saps the energy from the room, lowers the productivity ratio. I'm not sure how to handle the meeting with the bad apple, but it's been weighing on my mind. I started this blog because I love a well-run, productive meeting and because I can't stand meetings that waste everybody's time. I think there is a certain magic, a synergy, that lights up a room when a group of people click with each other. And that bad apple just makes the room stink.

Visuals

One of my sons seems to do a little better when we provide him with a visual cue, rather than just barking commands at him. After this revelation, I learned from my sister, an early childhood professional, that it's understood that all kids do better when they have both visual and oral directions, schedules, etc. So why don't we do this for adults, too? I started thinking of some ways to better manage a meeting with visuals. Have a timer on the table that can help move the agenda along when the meeting has a certain amount of time alloted to each agenda item. Consider adding photos or pictures or some other visual appeal to a meeting agenda or materials. Give people a smiley face to hold up when they agree with what another meeting attendee is saying. The ideas are endless for visual cues.

Rosters and meeting minutes and more

I had lunch with a good friend and colleague today. We discussed the need, or perhaps lack thereof, for so much formality associated with meetings. We were primarily discussing formality as in forms, documents, rosters, meeting minutes and more. When do we need a committee roster, typed minutes for the meeting, charters and the like? I'm not sure, but I err on the side of formality for groups such as nonprofit boards, government entities, planning bodies, etc. This kind of formality seems appropriate when the result of the meeting has accountability back to a funder or policymaker. I'm not so keen on all of the formality when it comes to committees or work groups that just need to get the work done and not be bogged down with paperwork and detailed word-for-word rehashing of conversations being translated into "minutes". And if you're going to require all of this document formality, you need to have someone to do that work.

Gripe of the Day

A past colleague of mine had the brilliant idea to begin each meeting with a Gripe of the Day. It replaced the cheery icebreaker, but in a productive way. Each person at the meeting had to state their gripe of the day, and once that was completed the group had a sense of moving on. So once you got your chosen gripe out of the way, you were more likely to get down to business and leave your other gripes behind for the duration of the meeting.

Start on time, please.

Please start your meeting on time. I went to a meeting this morning. It was my first time with this group. I thought I had arrived at the wrong time, because there wasn't hardly anyone there yet. The room wasn't yet set up for the meeting either. But I was there on time, and nearly no one else was. I found out from my neighbor at the meeting that the meetings never start on time, and everybody knows that, so no one arrives on time. So much about meetings are about respect. And I think it shows respect to start your meeting on time.

Mute the conference call

Most of the posts thus far have dealt with in-person meetings. But we all often do meet by conference call these days. And a meeting by phone appears to bring a whole new set of challenges to the art of meeting. First and foremost, I think a conference call that has any kind of presentation element, followed by a question and answer period, has to be automatically muted. I know this must be expensive, but cost must be weighed against the waste of resources associated with a call that is disrupted by background noise, or better yet, the clueless, annoying person who thinks they are muted when they are not (imagine dog barking, intra-office gossip, keyboard clacking, etc.).

Meeting Ticker

A friend and colleague, Stacey, suggested I check out this Meeting Ticker website. In her words it is an awareness tool, perhaps designed to scare (or shame) us into running effective meetings.
Being in the sexual health field, I don't know that I believe in the scare tactics or shame and blame game, but I really like the idea of this website forcing us to think about how we are spending our staff time in meetings. For example, sitting around talking about your organization's money troubles without dedicated focus to addressing those challenges is wasteful.

http://tobytripp.github.com/meeting-ticker/

Meeting juju

I think I've referred to "juju" in some of my previous posts. I was having coffee with a friend and colleague yesterday and we were discussing the need to work through some of what I call bad juju in meetings. She thought it best when people can just lay it all on the table, and work through whatever interpersonal challenges or power struggles might be causing the meeting struggles. I contend that a Lay It All on the Table strategy requires a fair amount of self awareness from the meeting participants. And if that self awareness doesn't exist, you can't work through the juju.

Unproductive meetings = unproductive staff

When I was in graduate school, we were required to take a class in management. It wasn't a bad class, not a great one either. But one of the things I do remember vividly was a discussion about unproductive meetings leading to an unproductive work place. I recall the professor citing some research that showed that sitting through bad meetings was the #1 reason why people sought employment elsewhere. So let's all re-commit to trying ways to make our meetings more productive, and thereby making our entire workplaces more productive.

Who is working the agenda?

OK, great. You realized that you needed an agenda. You created your agenda based on what you need to get accomplished. Now do you have someone to work the agenda? This is related to an earlier post re: "who's in charge here". It can be pretty darn frustrating to participate in a meeting that has a clear agenda, but the agenda is not used. Find someone who has the skills to lead your meeting and work the agenda, whether it's something that just comes to them naturally, or is something that they've learned how to do. And if for whatever reason the agenda is not right, rely on that leader to revise the agenda with the group and get back to work.

What is on the agenda?

So you read my earlier post and you realized you need to have an agenda. Now what should be on your meeting agenda? I believe meetings should have a beginning, a middle, and an end, and that your agenda should guide you through. You start the meetings with your introductions or your icebreaker or whatever you need to get your meeting started. You get your work done (the bulk of the agenda). You wrap it up and confirm what your next steps are. Simple, right?

Where is the agenda?

If you're going to have a meeting, you've got to have an agenda. OK, OK, again, I realize that I'm coming from one way of looking at organizing the world and our lives in it, but still, you've got to have an agenda. You can type it up and photocopy it and hand it out. You can write it up on a white board. You can put your heads together at the start of the meeting and scratch it out with ballpoint pen on a piece of notebook paper. But I believe you've got to have one in order to have a successful meeting.

Recognition

One of my coworkers has been talking a lot about the need for employee recognition at our organization's All Staff meetings. It's got me thinking. But I don't think we're quite ready for it yet. I only think public recognition in a meeting is useful and warranted when you have some important things in place. First, you've got to have a clear process for how someone earns recognition. Then you've got to have the right messenger deliver the recognition. And finally, it's got to warranted and honest and worthwhile.

Coffee date

In my experience, the way networking happens in the nonprofit world, and in particular, the nonprofit policy/advocacy world, is you meet for a coffee date. And I believe there is a certain formula to make this work. First, you do your intro's and lay out why you wanted to get together for the coffee meeting. I think this is where you get a feel for how formal or informal your conversation with this person is going to be. Second, you get your business covered. You learn about what they're doing right now, what their plans are for the future, how you might be able to work together, etc. Last, you might share a little bit of work related rumor or gossip, but only if you got the feel for this in Step one. All the while, you are enjoying a cappuccino or latte or some other special coffee drink, rather than the swill back in the office.

Signage

For a large "meeting" or event, signage can make or break it from the start. When people first arrive, if they are greeted with a welcome and clear directions about how to proceed through appropriate signage, I think it makes the meeting go so much better. I'm hesitant to complain about Minneapolis DFL events since I haven't bucked up and gotten more actively involved. Unfortunately, they are all to often a perfect example of the need for better signage. At our Senate District's annual picnic, a newbee would feel much more welcomed with a welcome sign. And at our convention, signs directing you where to enter, where to go to check-in, where to get help, etc., would alleviate some of the stress and chaos. Now turning to an example of someone with good use of signage: my colleague Kate. At our annual lobby day at the Minnesota State Capitol, she has signage down to an art. Big, colorful signs with clear directionals. Thoughtfully placed to lead people to the right place. I keep encouraging Kate to get more involved with the DFL!

Book Babes

One of my book clubs met tonight. We've been meeting for more than 8 years, and in that time we've gone through a few permutations. One of the things we do really well is work together to figure out how best we want to run our book club. We've fallen into a pattern where the host speaks first, explains why they chose their "text" (can be book, poetry, movie, magazine or just a good topic for that matter). Then we go around the circle and each of us comments, or comes clean about not having read the book (no judgments, gosh I love this book club). Discussion ensues for as long as needed until we've exhausted our text discussion and have drifted to family, politics, work, whatever. One last thing about our meeting tonight: our host, Robbie, often delights us with a theme, often based on the geographical setting of the book. Tonight we had treats from Norway and Sweden. I couldn't pronounce most of it, but enjoyed it all nonetheless.

bnet

Hey, somebody is paying attention! My friend and colleague Grit passed on this link. As far as I can tell, it says the same stuff that I'm saying here, but in a more practical way, and looks fancier: http://www.bnet.com/2403-13059_23-61211.html

Who's in charge here???

Oftentimes a meeting goes south because no one is in charge. Now I know I'm talking about one dominant culture's idea about what a meeting is and how it should go, but yeah, that's what I'm talking about. When someone is supposed to be in charge, but doesn't know how to be, or doesn't want to take charge, or worst of all, they think they are in charge, but they're not, a meeting can cause real, physical, psychological PAIN. So if you want to have a successful meeting, identify a person to be in charge. Make sure this person wants to be or is at least willing to be in that role and either has some natural ability or is willing to learn meeting management skills.

Rituals

OK, I have to out myself in order to write this post on rituals related to a meeting's success. About what do I need to come out, you ask? In college, I was in a Greek sorority. Chi Omega. And I wasn't just in the sorority, I was the president during part of my junior and senior years. But here's the deal: I learned a lot about how to run a meeting during those days. Yes, we really did have a secret handshake (I think it might have been called a grip) and a secret password. But by entering the chapter meeting after doing the grip and whispering the password, you were kind of transformed into this special meeting mode. There were other rituals related to the beginning and end of the meetings and other secret stuff that I honestly do not remember. But in fact, we had real responsiblities that required real actions and I believe the rituals, based in decades-long tradition, helped us have good meetings.

Half and half

A board colleague of mine, Ellen, brings half and half to every board meeting. It makes the coffee taste so much better, and sort of makes us all huddle together to get our work done. Little things like this actually makes one look forward to a meeting.

Memories of a fine meeting

When I was about 23 years old, I worked at a group home for boys in York, Nebraska. I worked there for a very short time, but while I was there I got to experience the meeting magic of Andrea, our supervisor. She was quiet, didn't say too much. But she had a briliant presence about her. She knew how to run a staff meeting! When things were tense, she got us through it. You came away from those meetings feeling like something had just been accomplished, and knowing what you were supposed to do next.