Meetings Are Presentations, Too!

If you conduct regular meetings, then this one is for you!? Whether in-person or online, if you lead recurring scheduled meetings with the same group of people, it’s tempting to slip into a comfort level that takes you off your game.? It's almost akin to settling your back against your oh-so-cozy cactus throw pillows and snuggling under your favorite orange blankie. I get it.? There’s a vibe, you don’t see the need to have so much formality to the event, and it feels like a real community of friends.

?But before the vibe appeared, before you cast formality to the wind, and before you became friends, you were a group of professionals gathered together for a common mission and to advance a common vision.? That has to remain at the center of every single meeting.? To be clear, don’t lose the vibe, don’t become stuffy, and definitely remain friends!? But do all of that while remembering why you initiated the meetings and while respecting everyone’s reason to get fully on board with you and these assemblies.

You don’t have to show up with a PowerPoint slide deck and a perfectly rehearsed script for every meeting.? That would be going of the deep end!? But do keep these two points in mind when you conduct your meetings.

1.???? Avoid meeting to just meet.? But if that’s the goal—to meet just to check a box or fulfill a requirement—then make an appropriate announcement beforehand so your listeners can properly manage their expectations (and manage their calendars because—on the cool—they may have better things to do than to show up to listen to an unscripted, unfocused, impromptu round robin.? Or if they do show up, then don’t be surprised if they are only partially engaged because they’ve privately decided your meeting is the perfect time to check a box, too, while they also work on something else.)? This is particularly important if you meet with professionals who joined your community with a specific goal in mind.? With each meeting, the expectation is that members of the community will get closer to their goal.? An hour of talking about the same thing every week for multiple weeks won’t necessarily accomplish that, but an hour of targeted conversations directly connected to the overall mission and vision upon which the community was built will.? Not to fear, though.? You can absolutely have moments where you veer off the planned topic for the day.? That’s what the best meeting facilitators do.? They read the room.? (More on that in a later post!)?

For instance, if you sense your community needs a different message in that moment and you know the precise message to deliver, then give it to them.? If another member of the community has a testimony to share that will uplift everyone, then give them the microphone.? If your planned content needs to be temporarily jettisoned because a community member posed a challenge that needs tackling in real-time, then roll up your sleeves and get to work.? These deviations from the plan, though, should not occur for the full duration of a meeting and not at every meeting.? But do anticipate the need to flex. ?Be proactive and make space for these deviations.? For instance, make it a standing agenda item that 10 minutes will be devoted to taking a detour from the original plan where you hear of members’ celebrations and wins and/or to solve a member’s problem, for instance—whatever detour is the right fit for your community.? And once you’re done, ensure you return to your purpose and your agenda. Don't meet to meet. Meet to move closer to a goal.

2.???? Deliver on your purpose and your promise. Busy people are assembled before you, and whether it's a conference breakout session, a virtual workshop, a team meeting, or a mastermind, they turn over their power to you when they agree to meet.? Time is power and it’s a precious commodity that cannot be replaced.? As such, deliver on the purpose and promise you made to your community.? Return to the vision and mission.? Reexamine the session description.? Review the workshop topics that were advertised.? Revisit the notes from the last meeting.? Recall the why behind what brought all of you together, then move everyone closer to where they want to be. ?Have bulleted items of the topics that need to be covered if not all in one meeting, then over the course of your meetings.? Announce them.?

If there will be a series of meetings where you cover a different topic at each meeting that is directly connected to the mission and vision of the community, then announce those topics.? If you will meet on a regular basis with a team with the exact same agenda each meeting but with each meeting building on the previous one, then make that clear.? (Think sales or marketing teams that meet every Monday to ensure they are heading in the right direction with prospecting, revenue goals, client retention and satisfaction, and the like.)

If you fail to do that, if you fail to deliver on your purpose and your promise, then people start to see the meetings as a waste of time, and you will see either attendance and/or engagement start to wane.? More and more cameras are turned off.? Fewer and fewer people are speaking up.? One after another starts to question the point of the assemblage.? Remember they are busy professionals.? Trust and believe they have full calendars.? So, make the time worth their while.? Immediately give them a reason to listen to you—a reason to turn over their power to you—and continue to deliver on your purpose and promise throughout the meeting.

You've got this!

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