The FireFly Whiteboard - Effective Meeting Facilitation Strategies, Team-Building Tools, and Training Techniques from Kimberly Douglas, President of FireFly Facilitation.

Ask your team “Why are we here today?”

According to a Microsoft survey of over 38,000 employees, almost 70% felt that the average 5.6 hours they spend each week in meetings are unproductive.*        

What an incredible waste of talent, time, and energy – not to mention lost opportunities – for a company to have!  Since I’m willing to bet that a good number of these meetings are with their immediate team, I believe that we can change these meetings from being called unproductive to the most exciting time of the week with ease.    

Over the next few posts, we’ll make available a few simple tips to make your meetings become the most engaging and thought- provoking time of the day, whether you’re the team leader or a team member.   

So, what can you do to enhance your meetings to increase your team’s effectiveness?  Start right away – simply ask this question at the beginning of your next team meeting… and see what dialog it sparks!

“Why are we here today?”

I would love to hear what responses you get – and what others can learn from your experiences.  Post a comment () below with your results or your questions. I would welcome the opportunity to reply to you! 

*According to the Microsoft Office Personal Productivity Challenge – a 2005 survey of 38,000+ people in 200 countries. 

Part 3: What To Do When Holding a Meeting with Silent Introverts & Overbearing Extroverts - Meeting Effectiveness Tips from FireFly Facilitation

The Mastering Meetings for Introverts webinar will be held this Wednesday, May 7^th. You won’t want to miss Dr. Jennifer Kahnweiler, President of AboutYOU, Inc., an Atlanta-based consulting firm, as she gives you insight on how to make your meetings more effective.

Remaining tips from Kimberly Douglas if you are the introvert…

1.   Get prepared to participate. Hopefully you know why you were invited – if not, ask the meeting leader. Make sure you know the key points you want to make in the meeting regarding the topics to be discussed. Jot these down on the agenda to be sure they get addressed. Review the pre-reading so that you are well-versed on the topic and can thus more fully participate.

2.   Sit in a strategic seat – see top item #2.

3.   Suggest the facilitator or meeting leader use ground rules and ask everyone to help the group live by them. See top item #3 for additional information on ground rules.

4.   When there is an opportunity to speak – take it. Start talking early in the meeting if possible, so that it won’t be so hard to do it after the meeting has already been going for awhile.

5.   Speak in a quieter tone – often people will become quiet to hear what you have to say.

     Remember, post a comment or question by clicking on Comments ( ) below…and I look forward to answering it an upcoming blog!

FireFly Facilitation Answers a Blogger’s Meeting Effectiveness Question

Have a tough question or issue you’re dealing with? We love receiving comments from our readers and are happy to respond to specific questions!  Here is another question from a recent blog visitor…

I manage a team of 10 student staff members and we meet on a weekly basis. As a student myself, I understand that they have other things going on and are often disengaged during our meetings. After meetings, they come to me asking the same questions that I already went over. It's very frustrating. How do you recommend leaders engage team members in this type of situation and help them retain the important information?

My top 4 recommendations for situations like these are:

1) Keep a targeted agenda in front of everyone at all times. Be sure it shows time allotted for discussion of each item. If time runs out, quickly decide how to deal with it – e.g. postpone further discussion until the next meeting (perhaps with prep work in between); allow X amount of additional time now; pick up the discussion at the end of the meeting, time permitting.

2) Be clear on the expected deliverable for each agenda item. For example, is it for idea generation, evaluation, decision, or planning? Limit the number of items that are for information only. Use handouts for these items with clear bullet points of facts they need to know; everyone has a very limited attention span for these kinds of topics.

3) Restate the outcome of the discussion before moving on. This gives people a sense of accomplishment and clarity about what was decided. Best practice tip: Flip chart decisions and actions throughout the meeting. Capture – for all to see – who is to do what by when. It amazes me how much more seriously people take their accountabilities when you write it up for all to see!

4) Make time for a 5-minute wrap up at the end. Do a round robin, with everyone recapping what they are accountable for delivering. Good questions for the leader to ask to get people thinking about the impact of the meeting: “Who needs to know what we decided today? How are we going to communicate this to them?

These 4 simple steps will keep everyone on point and engaged!