Audience
anyone who finds themselves in meetings once in a while
Key-Learning
- If meetings feel different from doing work, something is wrong.
- A good meeting consists of (1)synchronous (2)interactions with a (3)well-defined purpose.
- Keeping a meeting on-track requires Carol Sanford’s three core human capacities: internal locus of control, external considering, personal agency.
- Any participant can and should help in keeping a meeting on-track. Doing this is a great exercise in leadership.
Lead the way to effective meetings
Too often I hear people say: “Oh no, not another meeting!” They see their time at the office as either time in which they do work or time in which they are in meetings. And I must say, I have been in meetings that didn’t achieve much of anything. However, meetings don’t have to be like that. They can be effective and they can even become the place where you accomplish the most.
The first key to making meetings work, is to look at the three critical elements of a good meeting. They will help you decide if a meeting is the best way to get a particular piece of work done. Because sometimes the most effective meeting is the one that isn’t. This will also help you to notice when a meeting is going off-track. The second key is to approach meetings with the right mindset. To describe this mindset, I will be building on the three core human capacities as identified by Carol Sanford: internal locus of control, external considering, and personal agency. Which leads me to the third part of this talk: these capacities are closely related to leadership. Making meetings a place where things get done is an excellent way to develop your leadership skills.
So in this talk I will not be sharing tips, tricks and techniques to improve your meetings. Instead I will talk about what you need to make those techniques work. And I will talk about how doing so will make you a better leader.