When you run meetings

- Have you ever calculated the cost of your meetings? Using Harvard's meeting calculator and average salary estimates for IT professionals, a one-hour meeting with just four people will cost your organization around $300. We need to make the most of every second during our meetings. Let's watch Amanda facilitate a meeting with her team. As you watch, consider what she could change to make her meeting more effective. - Hello? - Hi, Lydia, is that you? - [Lydia] Yeah. Hi Amanda. - Okay, now that we have Lydia on the line, I think we can get started. So today we need to do a review of the civic center project and start figuring out how we can get caught up on our work for the VP. So the civic center project. We hit all of our internal and external deadlines. We have the client feedback now and it's all within the range we like to see. So we did fine on this one, but I don't think that's the case for the VP. Well, I can't really think of anything else, so moving on. Let's take a deeper look at the feedback from the civic center. - Are we almost done here? I've got a call in five minutes. - Oh yeah. Yeah, we can finish this next week. I'll see everybody then. - [Lydia] Okay. Bye everybody. - Oh, thanks Lydia. - Bye, Lydia. - Well, what did you notice? Amanda started off well with a clear agenda. She stated what they needed to do in today's meeting, but she could have sent the agenda in advance to give people time to think before sharing ideas. A smart agenda is specific about how people can best prepare for the meeting. For example, you might change after action review to plan to share three things that went well and three things that we could have done better on the project, 10 minutes. Adding that estimated time for each agenda item will help people mentally prepare. Teleoanticipation is a biological process for pacing oneself. Migrating birds use it to make sure they have enough energy to get to warmer places, and it's how athletes pace to finish a long run. Your meeting attendees also need to be able to pace their attention and energy exertion during a meeting, but no amount of pacing makes a two-hour meeting effective. Keep meetings at 60 to 90 minutes max by including only agenda items that require discussion. Basic update information can be handled in a different channel, like email or weekly briefs. So Amanda could have prepped a bit better but did you also notice that she was the one doing most of the talking? When you run a meeting, you want to stimulate discussion. Here are a few tips: prepare for your meetings by writing out the questions you will ask rather than the content you plan to share. When you ask a great question, allow some silence so people have time to think. Second, monitor participation so everyone has a chance to talk. Don't forget your virtual participants like Amanda did. Check in periodically with teleconference attendees. Three, demonstrate that you're listening by paraphrasing the content and emotion when others share. Finally, you can generate great discussion by paying attention to nonverbal cues. Do people look confused, frustrated or like they have a thought? Respond to those nonverbal cues to encourage the fullest participation. Let's watch Amanda to see her practice some of these great facilitation skills. - Okay. Let's shift gears. What could we have done even better? Jake, do you have a thought? - Well, we had a two-week gap in the last program plan. We had just had some good momentum going and bam, right back to square one. - Thanks Jake. So you're frustrated by the timeline, right? - Yeah, I mean, I know that we created the timeline but I'd like to see us moving forward, avoid these gaps. - Good, thanks. Lydia, I don't want to put you on the spot, but I do want to give you the floor if you have anything that you wanted to add. - Amanda is doing a much better job by functioning as a true meeting facilitator rather than dominating as a content expert. In the meetings toolkit you'll create an action plan to improve the meetings you lead.