Do you love your meetings? Do you leave feeling energized, inspired, and satisfied with everything that you and your colleagues were able to accomplish together? If not, this training is for you. Even the most miserable meetings suffer from just a handful of problems that are easy to understand and straightforward to solve. A few basic changes to your meeting structures, processes, and roles can make a huge difference in your ability to get work done in an effective, efficient, and enjoyable way. We cover two sets of modules: foundational skills and communication interventions.
Foundational Skills (4 hours)
- Troubleshooting weak spots: Use a systematic process to identify your group’s problem areas and make each meeting better than the last. (1 hr)
- Clarifying roles, goals, and responsibilities: Learn how to assign the four key functions in any meeting; clarify the roles and goals for each decision you make; and ensure that the structure of the meeting helps you reach your overall goal. (1 hr) Note: This module can be expanded to include detailed responsibility charting for specific types of decisions the group needs to make.
- Gathering balanced input: Build skill at fostering active participation from each individual and smoothly redirecting long-winded or tangential discussions. (1 hr)
- Staying objective: Practice separating facts from opinions and assumptions. (½ hr)
- Asking the right questions: Learn to spot the six different types of questions and use them skillfully to gather the information you need. (½ hr)
Communication Interventions (4 hours)
Develop your ability to intervene effectively, either as a leader or as a member, in each of the following types of challenging communication:
- Sarcasm (“Oh, sure, that’s a brilliant idea.”)
- Leading questions (“Don’t you think we should wait?”)
- Yes-buts (“That’s a nice idea, but it won’t work”) and discounts (“That won’t work”)
- Negative predictions (“We’ll never make the deadline”) and positive predictions (“I’m sure we’ll finish in time”)
- Information overload (long strings of facts, opinions, or proposals that never get responded to or acted upon)
Choose a format that works for you: Build a comprehensive meeting management skill set with our full 8-hour training, or mix-and-match individual modules to fit your schedule. Depending on your group’s goals, you may also choose to include any of the conflict resolution modules.