Meetings, meetings, meetings!

How to manage them effectively

Some of us spend a large proportion of our working lives in meetings – and much of this time is wasted.

That’s why good chairing skills are crucial. This practical and engaging programme shows how skillful chairing can steer a meeting to a successful conclusion, saving considerable time and significantly boosting efficiency.

What’s in it for you?

  • Be able to manage and chair meetings even more effectively and efficiently
  • Know how to make the most of the ‘before’, ‘during’ and ‘after’ phases of the meeting
  • Understand how to stimulate and facilitate discussion to maximise engagement
  • Know how to make sure contributions are heard and taken note of
  • Know how to clearly define the purpose of a meeting, and prepare a realistic agenda
  • Be able to handle negative, time-wasting and disruptive behaviours effectively
  • Know how to get a meeting off to a good start and ‘stamp your mark’ on it
  • Learn how to manage conference call meetings in a way that keeps people’s attention
  • Know how to ensure actions are recorded and followed up

Workshop outline

(Full-day version, 9.30 – 5.00)

1 Achieving best practice in meetings

  • What drives you crazy about meetings?
  • How and why a meeting can go wrong – and right
  • A benchmark of good practice
  • Key factors that lead to shorter, productive meetings

2 The perfect chairperson/manager

  • What makes someone a really good chairperson/manager of a meeting?
  • How the role of the chairperson may be different in different kinds of meetings, including:
    • Cascade / briefing / update meetings
    • Team meetings and 1:1 meetings
    • Discussion, debate or decision-making meetings
    • Feedback meetings
    • Brainstorming / blue-sky meetings
    • Review and ‘lessons learned’ meetings

3 The ‘before’ phase

  • Planning ahead of time and setting things up to succeed
  • How to draw up an agenda that works – and making sure it’s distributed ahead of time
  • Essential preparation to ensure success

4 The ‘during’ phase

  • Managing the meeting process
  • Getting off to a good start by setting the scene
  • How to keep the meeting on track and to time
  • Encouraging and facilitating the discussion
  • The power of summaries to clarify understanding

5 Handling difficult people and situations

  • Managing group dynamics
  • Reading the group / meeting
  • Dealing with people who waste time, are negative or hold side conversations, etc
  • How to handle disagreement / conflict

6 The ‘after’ phase

  • Bringing the meeting to a successful close
  • Ensuring everything has been covered
  • Why it’s important to distribute minutes ASAP
  • How to make minutes as effective as possible
  • Best practice for recording the most important discussions and agreements made / actions to be taken
  • Following up on action points

7 When the meeting isn’t working

  • Showing personal leadership by pointing out when the meeting isn’t working – because it’s gone off track or people are getting bored
  • The importance of taking individual responsibility
  • Looking for ways of supporting the process or being aware of time-keeping

8 Virtual meetings

  • What to consider in conference calls
  • The ingredients for success
  • How to avoid common problems

9 Actions and next steps

  • Review
  • Personal action planning
  • Next steps

‘Meetings, meetings, meetings!’ brings the subject to life, especially when delivered by Scott Rumsey, one of our most popular trainers. See some of the feedback he’s had from delivering this module virtually and face-to-face:

  • ‘It’s a good reminder of what you need to do to run meetings effectively. Empowers you.’
  • ‘Good background in basics and how-to’s of effective meetings.’
  • ‘Even if you know how to run a meeting, this will make you re-evaluate what you do.’
  • ‘Very good, very interactive and worked well with all our group.’
  • ‘Effective meeting chairing!’
  • ‘It covered all aspects of running and attending effective meetings.’
  • ‘Good, especially that we made our own meeting rules at the end.’
  • ‘Very useful and enjoyed the facilitation.’
  • ‘It was good to know that the things that I am doing for meetings are best practice but there are things that I can still improve on.’
  • ‘Great content and handy tips.’
  • ‘Comfortable level of interaction – typing rather than having to talk. Good to have open discussion and others bringing experiences and tips. Practical advice that can be used in a variety of different meetings. Thank you.’
  • ‘Good pace and engaging facilitator.’
  • ‘I like the trainer’s style. He delivered the Time Management course – that’s why I did this course too. I also like the structure & content of the session!’
  • ‘Very relevant information.’
  • ‘Reaffirmed what we have been doing and gave some practical ideas to improve. Easy to implement.’
  • ‘A useful session – thank you.’
  • ‘Really clear.’
  • ‘To the point and clear.’

To discuss which management and personal effectiveness modules would best suit you, just give us a call on 01582 463460 and we’ll be happy to talk you through the options.