EFFECTIVE MEETINGS
Reducing the Pain, Increasing the Gain
October 9, 2013
By Don Greer
Don Greer’s Bio
Don Greer is a principal of the Greer Black Company, a research and consulting firm, and
has worked with companies in semiconductor, logistics, telecommunications, software,
pharmaceutical, commodity manufacturing industries, and large government organizations
as well as start-up ventures, to help management teams create and implement effective
strategies in complex environments. With 30 years' experience as an internal and external
consultant, manager, facilitator, and system developer, his work draws on rich theoretical
frameworks and a repertoire of practical analytical, project management, system dynamics,
and collaboration skills and tools to design, manage, and execute collaborative efforts. He
specializes in collaborative processes for strategy design, scenario planning, operational
implementation, product development, and organizational change and transformation. Don
has addressed such diverse issues as disease epidemiology, supply chain design, and
aerospace program management to bring about managerial innovations and insight.
Don is also a faculty member in the Master of Advanced Studies in Humanitarian Logistics
and Management program at the Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) in Lugano,
Switzerland.
NOTICE: Don Greer facilitated a workshop for registered student organizations at
Montana State University on October 9th, 2013 and agreed to share this handout
for use by registered student organizations at MSU only. Distribution or use of
this material outside of this use is prohibited.
How do you balance these activities?
Planning the meeting
Conducting the meeting
Following up on issues discussed in the meeting
Write activities on either side of the center to reflect the
way you spend your time, making the scale balance.
1
Make Progress
Think about an upcoming meeting that is important to
you and challenging or risky.
The issue / occasion is
What I really want to happen is
If this happens, then
What makes me apprehensive or concerned is
With regard to this meeting, I wish I knew
2
Planning a meeting necessitates:
 Recognizing the roles needed to make the
meeting effective
 Deciding and clarifying the type of decision
making to be used
 Designing a working agenda
 Exploring / using the processes needed to
accomplish the agenda
3
Meeting Roles
 Participant
 Owner / Leader
o Calls
o (Maybe) designs
 Facilitator
o Designs
o Manages in-meeting processes and
conversations
 Recorder / scribe
o Documents elements of processes,
conversations, outcomes during meeting
o Distributes documentation post-meeting
 Other
4
Types of Decision Making
Time Required, Number of People Involved
Create collaborative outcome
Delegate with
resources / constraints
Decide by consensus
Gather input from group / team,
decide, and announce
Gather input from individuals,
decide, and announce
Decide and announce
Level of Ownership
Adapted from Facilitating Change, ©1996 Interaction Associates
Consider:
•How important is the decision?
•How much time is available?
•What information is needed?
•How critical is buy-in?
•What are people’s capability levels?
•Do we need to build group capability?
5
Planning a Meeting
What we usually do well in planning a meeting:
 When and where can we meet?
Establish the calendar date, start time, and location
 What is the issue?
Identify the focusing problem or question
What we often neglect in planning a meeting:
 When and where can we meet?
Establish an end time as well as a start time
 What is the desired outcome?
Identify what we want to have accomplished by the
meeting’s end
 Who needs to be involved in the meeting to
achieve this outcome?
 What is the decision-making process related to
the issue?
Identify processes for interaction to achieve the
meeting objective / desire outcome
 How much time will each of these processes
take?
 What meeting roles are needed to make these
processes—and transitions between them—
unfold smoothly?
6
Make Progress
Planning the Meeting
Initiative / Project Name:
______________________________________________
Objective / Focusing Issue:
What do we need to discuss?
Tip: Phrasing this as a question often helps clarify the focus:
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
Desired Outcomes:
What deliverables will this meeting produce? Note: Agreement
or awareness can be a deliverable, as can a tangible product.
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
Key Participants / Stakeholders
Who (name, representing whom?)
Why (expertise? buy-in?)
__________________________
____________________________
__________________________
____________________________
__________________________
____________________________
__________________________
____________________________
__________________________
____________________________
__________________________
____________________________
__________________________
____________________________
7
Possible Processes for Conducting the Meeting
Process
Est. duration
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
8
Meeting Name
Agenda
DATE:
TIME:
LOCATION:
FACILITATOR:
Calendar date
Start and end times
Street address, building number, room designation
Name—Position title
ISSUE(S):
The focusing question or problem statement
DESIRED
OUTCOME(S):
By the end of this meeting, we will have:


Opening
Topic
Topic
Break
Topic
9
Agreements?
Deliverables?
What
How
(Content)
(Process)
Who



All

Time
(Minutes)
The Shape of a Good Meeting
The Facilitation Diamond:
 A good meeting has an “opening out” period, or diverging
conversation from the opening “point of departure.”
 Trying to make meeting participants “turn the corner” and
converge on a decision or action plan before they have aired
possible options (or their thoughts and feelings) can result in
decisions that don’t “stick.”
 A good conversation converges, or “narrows down,” before the
meeting concludes.
 Understanding the “shape” of a good meeting can keep us from
panicking when others don’t agree with us at the outset.
10
Many Process Options
Generative (opening out) processes
Using structured processes for brainstorming or “opening
out” can help:
o Ensure equitable participation from everyone
o Keep the meeting from converging too soon or
diverging too long
Selective (narrowing down) processes
Using structured processes for selecting which of the
items generated in the “opening out” part of the meeting
merit more and/or focused attention can help:
o Ensure equitable participation from everyone
o Ensure a rationale (and sense of fairness) in
focusing on some items to the exclusion of others
Turning the corner
Useful phrases for transitioning from generative to
selective processes—“turning the corner”—include:
o I want to do a process check... Are we ready to
consider which of these ideas we want to move
forward?
o Does anyone have ideas we haven’t heard yet?...
If not, then...
o Have we covered the territory of options for
this?... If so, then....
11
Meeting Facilitator Responsibilities
Planning
o Desired outcome
o Participant / stakeholder analysis
o Agenda / meeting roles / process choices
Conducting
o Ground rules
o Decision-making processes in meeting
o Meeting roles executed
Closing
o Comparing desired outcome to actual outcomes
o Leading Benefits / Concerns / Next Steps /WWW
conversation
Following-up
o Ensuring documentation shared
o Checking on WWW for Next Steps
o Beginning the next meeting with updates since
last meeting’s closing
12
Follow-up Begins in the Meeting
Debrief real-time in the meeting
 Bs and Cs (aka + / ∆)
o Benefits / +s – What was good / useful / fun about
what just happened?
o Concerns / ∆s – “How to…” and “I wish I knew…”
o Next Steps – For each concern, identify Who / What /
When
Debrief post-meeting
 Red-yellow-green
o For each stakeholder in the meeting / initiative…
 Green? – fully engaged, fully supportive
 Yellow? – willing to proceed but with reservations
 Red? –opposed to moving forward
 TIP! Meet one-on-one with RED
stakeholders to learn the sources of their
concern and how to resolve them BEFORE
the next meeting!
13
Integrating Across Meetings
 Learn from every meeting—use +s / ∆s to
improve planning and conducting
 Establish patterns of continuity and
accountability—begin working meetings with
updates on Next Steps / WWW
 Pace meetings for overall organizational
effectiveness, not singular issue outcomes
14