When It's Worth Having a Meeting Before Your Meeting

Imagine the following scenario. You’re a division president of a Fortune 500 company and you’ve been tapped to run a crucial new initiative. The executive committee has targeted Southeast Asia as a new market for your company, and you’re tasked with reorienting the strategic focus of your division. You know this change will be controversial, as you’re going to have to redistribute parts of your division to make the strategic plan work. You’re also going to have to lay off a small part of your workforce, and you need to decide exactly how many people and in which areas. Although you know the discussion with your executive team will be heated and that not everyone will agree with your decisions, you’re excited about the task and know you can make it work.

You schedule a meeting with your team to announce the news and discuss the details. But as soon as the meeting starts, you realize this is going to be harder than you thought. First, you realize that you misjudged how some people would react to the news. You thought certain people would immediately be onboard, but they’re not. You hadn’t anticipated some of the questions they ask, so you don’t have good answers. You also notice that several team members are completely silent, typing away on their personal devices and giving each other looks as you lay out the plan. The meeting ends and you feel stressed and discouraged because it seems as if you’ve lost some key members of the team before the change initiative has even started. What could you have done differently?

You could have, and should have, scheduled a series of strategic “pre-meetings” with stakeholders before the actual meeting. Pre-meetings are essential for anyone looking to have a successful meeting about a contentious issue. They are opportunities for information gathering, coalition building, building trust and rapport with allies and potential detractors, and stress testing and refining your arguments and perspectives. That way, by the time the actual meeting happens, you have a well-thought-out set of justifications for your point of view.

What are some best practices for using pre-meetings to navigate your way around politically charged issues in large organizational meetings?

Talk to the Right People

You’re probably not going to have time for a pre-meeting with everyone who will be at the actual meeting, but make sure that you line up people who will be directly affected by whatever decision is going to be made, as well as those who have the most political influence — even if their own area won’t necessarily be affected. As the owner of the meeting, you need to consult with and have a clear understanding of the viewpoints of these players.

It’s also crucial to meet with people who have a different point of view so you can anticipate objections and, perhaps most important, incorporate their thinking into any proposals you suggest. For example, I spoke with a software executive who lamented the fact that in his former company, developers would have pre-meetings to come up with plans and strategies but fail to invite sales and marketing — only to realize later on that they developed something that would not sell and could not be marketed successfully.

Really Listen

During your pre-meeting, don’t be so focused on convincing people that you fail to hear what they say. Instead, really listen to their point of view, work hard to understand their interests and underlying positions, and demonstrate that you appreciate and understand their perspective. They’re much more likely listen to and accept your point of view if you’ve treated them with dignity and respect in these initial stages.

Be open and be honest; don’t hide potential issues that they might be unhappy with. In fact, make sure to surface these issues up front, anticipating their concerns and inviting them to suggest potential ideas for a joint solution. For example, you might say: “I can imagine this might be a concern or problem, and I’d like to hear your thoughts and any ideas you have for addressing this issue.”

By bringing these players into the debate early on, you have a chance to frame the problem as a joint issue — something you are collaborating to solve — which increases the odds of having a fruitful meeting.

Don’t Overlook the Importance of Framing

Be sure to present contentious issues in a way that will resonate with the other person. If you’re talking to someone who’s afraid of rocking the boat, don’t frame your new initiative as revolutionary or risky. Instead, frame it as incremental and as something that has been sanctioned or endorsed by people high up in power. Show how it is consistent with the values of the company or brand and with what the company is already doing. On the other hand, if someone is a risk taker, explain how what you’re doing is a bold move for the company.

Pre-meetings play an essential role in the political process of any organization. They are the best way to gain buy-in and acceptance for a new idea. Before you walk into a potentially contentious meeting, make sure you’ve already held the right pre-meetings.

Andy Molinsky a Professor of International Management and Organizational Behavior at the Brandeis International Business School. He is the author of the forthcoming book Reach: A New Strategy to Help You Step Outside Your Comfort Zone, Rise to the Challenge, and Build Confidence (Penguin, 2017). Follow Andy on Twitter: @andymolinsky.

This article was originally published at Harvard Business Review.