One Tiny Upgrade You Can Make to Your Meetings

I’m leading a webinar tomorrow called Mastering Great Meetings, so meetings are on my mind today. And if you know me, you know that being a professional facilitator makes me a true snob when attending other people’s meetings! So I’ve learned things from practicing best practices but also seeing what doesn’t happen when the best practices aren’t in place.

I wanted to give you one bite-sized tip to upgrade your meetings. It’s a simple and straightforward thing to add to your document (the one you probably call the agenda).

Here it is. Above the agenda, before you start listing topics or laying out the plan for your time together, include a list of results you would like the meeting to achieve.

This is easier said than done. Usually meeting leaders know what topics they want to discuss, but they haven’t always thought through what specific outcomes should come from this one hour they have together, today.

This list of intended results should all start with nouns. We’re not talking about what you’re going to do with your time together. We’re talking about, if you did that thing you’re going to do, what would you have after you did it?

Here are some examples of intended meeting results:

• A decision on whether or not to proceed with submitting the proposal.

• Shared understanding on the current state of our acquisition.

• A list of clear next steps.

• Increased trust among group members.

Taking the time to think about and articulate clear results will greatly increase the likelihood that you’ll achieve those results (go figure!). Your meeting stakeholders will then be able to see the list you wrote and get behind it. It will be much harder for them to get behind something they can’t see, no matter how obvious it is to you!

If you think of yourself as “results focused,” or want to be, this is a way to make the rubber meet the road. (Pun intended!)