GetAhead in Business Meetings Course Outline

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GetAhead in Business Meetings

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This training course will teach you to maximize your effectiveness in the highly visible forum of a business meeting and make the meetings you lead more productive.

You will learn how to:

Develop and use an agenda to lead discussion of the meeting’s key objectives. Understand the politics of meeting with subordinates, peers or superiors.
Identify personality types and target your own message for maximum impact.
Encourage participation so that all decisions made are owned by the group.
Tactfully prevent others from taking control or holding up progress.

Study Area 1 - Introduction

This section describes the importance of justifying meetings on the basis of their true cost, being selective about the meetings that you attend, and trying to influence all future meetings to ensure a positive outcome.

Study Area 2 - Calling a Meeting

Do You Need A Meeting - Explains why unscheduled meetings, which usually focus on a single issue, can be an efficient alternative to a formal scheduled meeting and how to decide which format is the most appropriate.

Your Goals & Objectives - Describes why it is important to have a clear objective ahead of a meeting and how to focus any case you are presenting on a clear message and not just the facts and information that support it.

Planning Your Agenda - Describes the meeting agenda which: acts as a reference against which to prepare for a meeting, provides a script for the meeting itself and represents a standard by which the meeting can be judged a success or failure.

Preparing the Venue - Discusses the importance of selecting an appropriate venue, which matches the specific requirements of the meeting and how seating arrangements can affect the atmosphere and tone of the meeting.

Study Area 3 - Controlling a Meeting

Chairing a Meeting - Describes the role of the chairperson and why the chair should always strive to be seen as impartial, focusing on the processes of the meeting rather than the substantive issues it has been called to address.

Subordinates, Peers & Superiors - Explains the different problems facing the chairperson depending on the composition of the meeting group, and discusses different strategies that are effective for chairing meetings with subordinates, peers and mixed groups.

Opening & Leading - Describes the importance of making your style of leadership clear, ensuring that that each item is dealt with in line with the agenda and that all points of view get a fair hearing.

Staying in Control - Explains how the chairperson can exert a positive influence on the mood of the meeting, the importance of responding quickly to any rise in tension and how to prevent the meeting being hijacked by someone with their own personal agenda.

Closing Effectively - Explains how the chairperson should draw the meeting to a close, making any final remarks positive and forward-looking. It also describes the actions that need to be taken with regard to the minutes and follow-up activities.

Study Area 4 - Presenting Your Case

Targeting your Message - This section details a simple but effective method for identifying the personality types in a meeting group, and how to target your message accordingly.

Communicating Effectively - Explains how to read the body language of the other attendees, which should help you to focus your message where it can have maximum impact; keeping supporters with you, talking round those that can be swayed and trying not to alienate those who oppose your case.

Using Positive Body Language - Explains how to use positive body language to reinforce the opinions you wish to express, and how to avoid negative or intrusive non-verbal communication that may undermine your message.

Effective Audio-Visual Aids - Describes the advantages and disadvantages of the most commonly used visual aids, and how they can be used to support your contribution to a meeting.

Study Area 5 - Dealing With Conflict

Identifying Role Players - This section describes the main roles that individuals tend to adopt in meetings: how to recognize these roles, how to identify any disruptive participants and take action to prevent them from having a negative impact on the meeting.

Controlling the Factions - Explains how splitting up known factions and the use of tactical seating arrangements can defuse a potentially volatile meeting and ensure that the agreed objectives always remain the priority.