Meetings are relational. Meetings involve people with all their talents, foibles, biases, fears and hopes. If we ignore the people at meetings we achieve nothing.
Have you ever come out of a meeting feeling that it was a waste of your time? A waste of energy?
Powerful Questions For Self
What questions would you have to ask yourself to ensure you’re getting the most out of meetings; whether they are with peers, bosses, staff or stakeholders?
- Was I clear about what I wanted to achieve here?
- Did others know my outcome? Were there obstacles to doing this?
- Was I prepared for this meeting – emotionally, mentally and physically?
- Did I know the agendas at this meeting?
- How did I contribute to the meeting’s success?
- How did I support the chair/facilitator?
- What could I do next time? Meantime?
4 Questions To Evaluate Meetings
Courageous thought, people and specialist leaders evaluate their meetings by asking 4 Questions and rating them on a scale of 1 (low) 5 (high) – often in writing/via email or verbally:
- Did we achieve our outcomes at this meeting?
- Did we demonstrate our leadership?
- Did you feel valued for your skills, talents, expertise at this meeting?
- What would have to happen at meetings for you to score 5/5?
- What would you, personally have to do differently to score 5/5?
The 5th question is a challenge to answer privately.
Questions To Change Existing Meetings
If you always do what you always did you’ll always get what you always got. This quote is often attributed to Edwards Deming the father of quality management.
If what you’re doing at meetings is working for you – stop reading now. If not continue.
- What questions would change the course of your meetings?
- What have we never dared do?
- Have we ever costed our meetings?
- What talents do we have around this meeting table?
- How could we use these talents better?
- What meeting methods and meeting manners do we use?
- What innovative thinking tools do we use?
- What keeps us doing the same ol’ same ol’?
- What if we invited a new staff member to our organisation to facilitate or observe us in action?
- What other ways could we achieve our outcomes?