A truly effective meeting leader is able to let go and trust the process to deliver the best outcome.
Meetings are essential to facilitate group communication in our business lives, yet many of us see them as the bane of our workplace existence. We’ve all been there: wondering why we’ve been asked to interrupt our productivity to sit in a room filled with our colleagues in (what seems to be) a free-for-all with no specific agenda and unclear expectations. Are we there just so the boss feels like he or she is doing their job?
Effective meeting leaders
Executives who want to lead effectively understand their inherent responsibility to honor others’ time, communicate the reason for the meeting, set up expectations in advance and prepare to address various employee learning styles to obtain maximum productivity. In other words, act as a skilled improviser who operates within a series of guideline to provide structure and consistency. Rarely does a skilled, effective meeting leader “wing it.” Instead, they consistently operate on the fundamentals.
Effective meeting leaders respect each team member’s time. They anticipate meeting interruptions and know how to handle them. They know latecomers waste everyone’s time and are disruptive to the flow, so they come up with strategies to highly discourage tardiness. As explained in Harvard Business Review’s Guide to Making Every Meeting Matter, effective meeting leaders often assign chronic latecomers a job or task during the meeting so they’re more likely to show up on time. Or they physically help a chronic latecomer get to the meeting by stopping by his desk a few minutes before the appointed meeting time to suggest they walk together. Another way they respect their colleagues’ time is to limit meeting attendees to only those necessary to the topic at hand.
Effective leaders understand that some people are terrific at auditory processing, others not so much. Their meetings have a good balance of both speech and visual stimulation.
Establishing a safe climate for expressing alternate views is essential. Demonstrating a model for listening to opposing opinions goes a long way toward developing an atmosphere of trust, involvement and learning. A truly effective meeting leader is able to let go of the meeting’s outcome and trusts the process to deliver the best outcome.
Understanding various meeting types can help you plan and elicit participation from everyone in the room. Let’s say you’ve called for a brainstorming meeting to generate new ideas to solve an old problem. You’ve asked all decision-makers directly involved with the problem to attend, so that when a final idea is generated, it can be approved right then. You’ve communicated the purpose of the meeting and have set an appropriate time limit. You’ve anticipated the need for participants to get into the creative side of their brains and set aside a few minutes to engage in an activity to get those creative muscles flexing.
A list of ground rules for a brainstorming meeting might include:
• Everyone participates, no one dominates;
• Success depends on participation;
• Be positive, nonjudgmental and open to new ideas;
• All ideas are valid;
• “Yes…and” thinking (as opposed to, “Yes…but”);
• Ask “What’s possible?” not “What’s wrong?”;
• Stay open to new ways of doing things;
• Respect each other’s thinking and value all contributions;
• Have fun.
Great communication
An effective meeting leader doesn’t always have meetings. Instead, ask yourself how best to communicate the information your team needs. Do you need to interrupt their productivity to disseminate important information or will an email suffice? You may employ methods of accountability in a variety of ways. For example, if you decide an email is sufficient, ask each recipient to acknowledge receipt of the information.
With or without knowing it, effective meeting leaders often embrace the principles of improv. You use improv when you listen for agreement and build on the ideas of others. When you’re bold, you encourage boldness within your team. You critique ideas, not people. You genuinely care and want engagement. You earn respect by keeping your word and allowing space for our common humanity. That’s using improv to be an effective meeting leader.
Lisa Safran is a business strategist and the founder of Improv Consultants in San Rafael, which provides experiential training and development programs to support communication, leadership and team development. Reach her at info@improvconsultants.com or (415) 785-4986.
