Lead with Meaning

Birgittas Five Advices about Meetings & Facilitation

I believe that all meetings that actually happen, are important meetings.

Advice 1 – Choose the right channel and save time

If you are in fact only sharing a conference room, you might as well choose other channels for sharing information. Have a Skypemeeting, send a well formulated e-mail or make a videocall.

Advice 2 – Real meetings have a great potential

When you actually choose to have a (real)meeting – put more effort in to them to work on the potential in sharing, creating and reflecting. Train your Facilitation skills and make it part of your leadership training.

How many meetings do Managers have today?

I often make a simple survey when I have trainings and in average over a month, managers today have 53 meetings. A recent study of managers, showed that 23,6 hours in average are spent in booked meetings in a calendar today. (Magazine “Chef”nr 9)

Advice 3 – Ask 3 simple questions to start with

Did you ask yourself some of the following questions?

• How many meetings did you have last month?
• Were they all booked, and were they all important?
• What is a meeting at your company?

What is a meeting?

A meeting is when persons in the meeting actually meet each other. When they grow the questions raised, together to a higher level. When everyone has a chance to contribute, take part and deliver at their best. Or even easier, when everyone knows WHY they are there, WHO is there, WHAT they are supposed to discuss, and what result it is supposed to bring – and everyone contributes to and are RESPONSIBLE for this work.

A meeting is often a booked meeting between 2-10 persons. Less than that (1 person) is called reflection time, which is highly underestimated in strategic work :). With more than 10 participants, it is often a lecture or a performance, maybe a mingle or even just a social intercourse.

The role of the Facilitator

A facilitators role is to arrange the best possible arenas and work ground for the above. It can be an external, or internal. It doesn´t have to be the expert. On the contrary. A CEO can surely be a Facilitator. But a Facilitator surely doesn´t have to be a CEO or even an expert on the subject. The Facilitator is an expert in getting all the persons in the meeting to contribute.

Plus and Minus-Energy

When you have many meetings, make sure that each and every single one gives energy. Even very little energy is enough! (Plus-energy) Please be aware, that if most meeting takes energy (minus-energy), even just a little you put your long-term sustainability as a manager and as a person at risk!

Advice 4 – What to do? Here is some true advice to take some more StePs!

• Map your meetings! How many, how often, gives plus- or minus-energy?
• State if you have a need for, and a possibility to influence or even change your meetings
• Use a Facilitator!
• Do we have skilled Facilitators in our organization – how could we train them?
• Could we imagine sometimes using a skilled external Facilitator that shares knowledge along the way? (This is what I do for my customers and share as much as I can)
• How do we work with Facilitation? Is that part of our Leadershiptraining?
• Have some reflection around what is Meetingstructure
• What is OUR MeetingCulture? Could we change that if we wanted to?

Advice no 5 – Take your meetings seriously and use each and everyones’ potential!