Fast Company Article Melinda Re "You Have To Start Meeting Like This!", Fast Company, April 1999, Gina Imperato, pg. 204-210.

WE Have To Start Meeting Like This!

This article is based on an interview with Michael Begeman, a meeting expert for 3M. His duties include planning and facilitating meetings. According to Begeman, good meetings don't just happen they are designed. The people needed at the meeting and the processes that are needed to make it successful have to be carefully thought about ahead of time.

Make the expectations of the meeting clear to everyone before the meeting. People come with their own expectations of what the meeting is for and if they are met, then they feel the meeting was good. If they are not met, then they feel like the meeting was bad.

For example, not all meetings have to end with a decision to be successful. However, most people work toward a decision because they feel like they are getting something done. Different kinds of meetings need different kinds of conversation. Make sure everyone coming to the meeting understands the goal of the meeting. Make it clear to people ahead of time what the conversation is for, then keep them to it. Here are some examples of different kinds of meetings:

7 Conversation for Possibility

Goal: Maximize creativity Generate ideas

7 Conversation for Opportunity

Goal: Gather information Analyze Narrow down options Take positions

7 Conversation for Action

Goal: Decide Commit

Begeman suggests that the quality of communication is poor in most meetings. His mission is to change that. The 3M Meeting Network publishes and distributes a monthly e-mail newsletter that can be found at www.3m.com/meetingnetwork. I visited the site and found it to contain useful information including tools and techniques that can help make your meetings and presentations more successful. Begeman outlines some good meeting behavior that could improve meetings by increasing communication:

7 Listen (you don't need to agree) 7 Recognize the merit in everyone's position 7 Incorporate that into your thinking

Make socializing a legitimate component to a meeting. Allow 5 - 10 minutes of open time at the beginning of the meeting to encourage people to relate. Put it on the agenda so you feel like you are doing what you are supposed to be doing. If you want to direct the conversation, open with a question such as, "Is there anything you need to say to be present at this meeting?" This allows people to say whatever it may be to clear their minds and be able to focus on the meeting.

Involve the whole person in the meeting. The more you involve the whole person, the more they will learn and the more they will retain. People work more effectively together if you encourage them to play together. Have a bag of meeting toys and play with them. They are good stress relievers and enhance creativity.

To improve the quality of meetings, close the meeting with a 5 minutes discussion about its effectiveness. Ask, "What worked well? What didn't go so well? How can we improve?"

One meeting dilemma is deciding how much to record. Focus on 3 categories of information:

7 Decisions reached 7 Action items that need follow up 7 Open issues

If you're serious about improving the quality of meetings you facilitate or attend, you might want to try some of these suggestions.

A member of our office staff had heard about this article from a colleague at a recent meeting and upon spying my copy of Fast Company, asked me to provide a short staff development session at the next staff meeting. On May 12, 1999 as part of the Crow Wing County Extension Office Staff Meeting, I presented the material from the lesson and led a discussion about how we could use the information to make the meetings that we facilitate and attend more successful.

Everyone agreed that this information gave them insight into how to better plan a meeting and how to be a better meeting participant when attending a meeting called by someone else. Our final conclusion was that there is no one right way to conduct a meeting. It is best to look at the people needed at the meeting, the task that the meeting is called to address and then tailor the meeting to meet those needs.

-- Anonymous, June 10, 1999