Meetings can be awesome (really!) Part 2: Facilitating

Part 1- Planning

Part 3- Finishing strong

When done right, meetings bring teams together to tackle complicated problems. They can be productive, inspiring, and even fun ??. When done incorrectly, they are a complete waste of time and resources.

Do you want to be a leader who runs meetings that motivate and excite your team?

In part two of this three-part series (Part 1), I will share tips on facilitating.? Here’s some advice from my WellSpan colleagues about the keys to leading an effective meeting.

Click here for more practical leadership tips.

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“Keep everyone engaged.” -Shelly Janiszewski, WellSpan practice manager

Have you ever used a meeting to catch up on email, text your friends, fill your Amazon cart? How useful was that meeting?

It’s up to the leader to set an environment where everyone is engaged. This starts with effective planning by having clear goals, inviting the right people, and creating an effective agenda (Check out Part 1 for more detail).

Some organizations use strict rules such as banning phone and laptop use for in-person meetings and requiring cameras and microphones to be turned on for virtual meetings.

These rules can be effective, but great leaders want their teams to want to be engaged.

Keep your team engaged by being:

• Positive: Keep an upbeat (and authentic) attitude about the material. Simply smiling while you facilitate draws people in.
• Productive: We all enjoy getting stuff done! Complete your meeting goals today instead of pushing them to the next meeting.
• Interactive: Find ways to include everyone. You can call people out by name or rely on polls, questions or virtual chats. I personally love using emoji reactions ?? in virtual meetings to create more interaction.
• Creative: Try adjusting when and how you hold the meeting to keep things fresh. Consider trying virtual whiteboard meetings where people can add notes, GIFs or pictures in real-time. Maybe you can use role playing to try out a new workflow. ??????????

“Don’t rush, follow the seven-second rule.” - Meagan Alan, MS, MBA, PA-C , WellSpan heart and vascular program administrator

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Silent moments are some of the most productive times in a meeting.

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(crickets chirping ??)

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Ok, they don’t work as well in writing, but they can be your superpower when facilitating a meeting.

Silence is a clear signal that it’s time to engage with the topic. Our brains use these few seconds to process the information and formulate ideas. These short pauses will help steer your team toward creative collaboration instead of lazy listening.

Integrating the seven-second rule is simple, but incredibly hard. All you have to do is periodically pause for seven seconds to allow your team to join in.

But it’s more difficult than you think since silence can be unnerving when you are leading a meeting, and seven seconds can feel like minutes. Every fiber of your being will want to jump to fill the silence.

To get the hang of this superpower ??♂?, try these tricks:

• Mississippi: Literally count it out in your head: one Mississippi, two Mississippi... Just make sure you are not mouthing it as you do it. That’s just weird.
• Coffee: Take a long swig of a drink. This is my go-to trick.
• Toe tapping: Tap out a short tune with your toes. "Happy Birthday” works, but I'm sure you can think of something that’s more interesting.

“Don't be afraid to interject if someone strays from the agenda.” - Dr. Michael Seim , WellSpan senior vice president and chief quality officer ?

When was the last time you thought, “How is this topic relevant to our meeting?”

Straying from the agenda is more harmful than you think. It’s a major distraction that causes disengagement. Fun fact: A recent study shows that it takes an average of 23 minutes to refocus after becoming distracted.

Imagine what you could do with those 23 minutes? You could...

That’s an interesting thought, but let’s bring this back to our topic.

Remember that you own the agenda for the meeting and it’s up to you to keep things on track. Your team depends on you. Don’t be afraid to step in and redirect the conversation. If you planned appropriately, you should not have extra time for tangents and still achieve your meeting objective.

When important side topics surface, acknowledge them and table them for a future discussion. Something as simple as “That’s a great idea, however I want to focus on our agenda items and talk about that at our next meeting.”

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Great leaders facilitate meetings that bring their team together and accomplish the meeting objectives. Follow these simple tips and you can run awesome meetings.

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