Management Styles
Supervisory Approach
Management - Miscellaneous
Communication-Verbal/Listening
Communication - Non-verbal
Creative Process
Creativity
Staff Motivation
Problem Employees
Personal Crisis -Indicators
Work Related Values &
Work Environment
Meetings
Presentations
Marketing Assessment
Prospecting
Customer Service
Management Files - main mage
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MEETINGS
Managing Meetings |
Stages of Meetings |
Participating in Meetings
New Member to Group | Once Meeting Has Settled Down |
Disagreeing
Common Compliants About Meetings
— Purpose is unclear.
— Key people are absent or late.
— Conversation does not stay focused / on track.
— Participants who do not discuss issues, either:
- Dominate conversation
- Argue
- Take no part at all
— Meeting outcome is predetermined, with no discussion or negative input
allowed by participants. Often called "Yes Meetings" or "Rubber Stamp
Meetings"
— Decisions made are not followed up.
— It is estimated that upper-level managers spend 60 - 70% of business
day in meetings.
Managing / Facilitating Meetings
— Meeting guideline considerations:
- Establish exactly what the meeting should accomplish. Do it in one
or two sentences.
- Is holding a meeting the best and most efficient way to accomplish this?
- A few days in advance, send out an agenda to those scheduled to attend.
— Agenda Purpose:
- maintain focus and order
- establish ground rules
- enable attendees to come prepared with necessary material / information.
— Start the meeting on time and end as scheduled.
— Take responsibility for the meetings progress and outcome.
— Keep the discussion on track. Maintain order and focus.
— Facilitate conflict resolution.
Allow disagreement,but insure that it does not get out of control.
— If the meeting is not making progress, try other techniques such as brainstorming.
4 Stages of Meetings
- Participants feel each other out and orient themselves.
- Conflict erupts between members - quite often over what the group is
supposed to be doing.
- Group agrees on certain rules or norms, to guide their deliberations.
- Members settle down to assigned task(s).
- There is no typical or desirable sequence
- Groups will jump back and forth among the stages.
- An effective group may experience conflict and then go back to
orientation.
- Gauge your contribution or management of the meeting accordingly.
— Orientation Stage
- Clear up any potential "grey areas" about procedures or agenda.
- Take clarification questions from the participants.
- Do not try to deal with every detail in the stage.
- Beware of using forceful "must do" statements may prompt group withdraw
and not participate for remainder of the meeting.
— Handling Questions and Answers
- How the facilitator/meeting manager accepts questions and answers is
an an important factor in motivating or inhibiting individual participation.
If question or answer is repeated do not not pass over, ignore, or cut off.
- Act as a prober - have the person expand on the statement.
New ideas may surface in the explanation.
— Various roles of participants
- Participants of meeting will take various roles.
- Pay attention to the stage the meeting is in and the different roles
participants take on.
- People strive to satisfy their own psychological needs, whether it be
unconscious or conscious.
- Potential roles:
Information giver
Information seeker
Coordinator
Encourager
Follower
Compromiser
- Pay attention to the various roles participants take on.
- Same person may adopt different roles in different groups.
- When one group meets numerous times, individual is likely to stay with role
taken in first few meetings.
— Acceptance and Rejection Positioning
- A participant's positioning will signal acceptance and rejection of ideas.
- Anyone positioned with their back to speaker will probably reject speaker's
proposals before they are even presented to them.
- The person sitting directly opposite the speaker's position is in the best
to recieve open, positive feelings depending - or closed negative feelings on
what is being sent.
- If this person turns away and avoid eye contact, he/she is hesitant to accept
speaker's ideas.
- These messages can help facilitator / presentor tailor presentations and
introduction determine the "timing" of the of the new ideas.
— Closing a Meeting
- Look for opportunities to summarize
- Avoid forcing revolution of issues that the group wants to leave ambiguous.
- Ask for volunteers to do follow-up work on a particular matter.
- When leaving do not mutter negative statements about it being time wasted.
- If you hear these compliants, take the person aside and in a non-threatening
way ask for reasons and suggestions for improvements.
- Keep an open mind to new ideas and try to implement those that seem to have
merit.
- Give the person credit for suggestion(s).
- Person will appreciate the credit and is likely to be a better supporter /
contributor in the future.
- Will send message to other participants that ideas and suggestions are
welcomed.
Participating in Meetings
— Prepare before attending a meeting
— Find out what is to be discussed -request an agenda.
— Review the points you want to make.
— Gather supporting data.
— If your points are likely to be contrary to other views, you may want to tell this
advance. Let them know the issues you wish to raise and the reasoning to
support it.
— Arrive a few minutes early. As others arrive, pay attention to what is said and
to such non-verbal behavior as seating selections.
— Using forceful statements during the meeting may prompt the group to freeze
you out of the remaining porion of the meeting.
New Member to Group
— Ask before occupying a seat. Members are likely to assigned themselves to
seats around the table and expect to sit in that same seat each meeting.
— Certain seats also carry more "clout" than others.
- Around a rectangular table, the facilitator / leader almost always sits at the
head of the table.
— Another dominant participant will assume seat on the opposite end / foot of
the table.
— When participants randomly assume seats, those who sit in the end seats will
end up
— acting more forcefully than usual. Observe the participants body language.
— "Heavy hitter" body language:
- Sprawl or sit in relaxed position
- Usually shift position frequently
- Gesture with large movements, moving away from body
- Swivel in chair, if possible
- When speaking, look directly at people more than other participants
- Avert their gaze when listening
Once Meeting Has Settled Down
— Groups that meet often usually settle down quickly.
- Listen carefully, then pick your moment to volunteer you point.
- Make sure that you have facts to support your position. This is especially
relevant when a point(s) are raised for the first time.
- If feeling less confident, wait for a moment when it can be introduced
as a helpful response to a remark made by someone else.
- Present your idea as an outgrowth of the discussion.
- Make your point clearly.
- Use sentences that quickly summarize your facts.
- Listen carefully to remarks that follow; answer questions and defend idea
without getting defensive.
- Do not press prematurely for a conslusion.
- If decision goes against you:
- Be quiet
- Let the matter drop
- Do not sulk or "whine"
Disagreeing
— Be very conscious of need for everyone to "save face."
— Consider:
- Going back to purpose of meeting. Perhaps ask a question.
- Suggesting a look at issue in a broader content.
- Adopting role of devil's advocate - raise objection in this context.
- If in greater risk taking mood, Use / accept part of the viewpoint.
enthusiastically and restate the rest; slightly altering it to fit your own view.
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