There’s a difference between facilitating a conversation and managing a meeting from a soapbox.
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We’re slammed with more meetings than ever. But how many are truly valuable and focused on your team and their development? Here’s one meeting that your employees are begging for.
Making it about THEM. The best managers lead meetings with questions, not answers. First, re-align your positive intentions.
“After reflecting on our prior meetings, I could have done a better job managing the meetings so, I want to apologize. I’ve done you a disservice because I value you and your opinion, experience and expertise and I know we all have opinions on how to achieve our goals or resolve certain challenges. That’s why I want to better leverage your talents and ideas. Are you open to this?”
First: Have them send you the topics they would would you like to focus on and discuss during of this meeting. Then, you can recap their focus to ensure alignment and kick off this conversation with questions.
1. Thanks for sharing your ideas and topics to discuss. Let’s start by reconfirming your priorities today and hearing your ideas around…
2. I certainly have my opinion around this, that I’m happy to share. However, I’m interested in hearing your thoughts first, since you’re closer to this situation than I am, and I trust you and your judgement. What’s your opinion around….
3. Thanks for sharing your opinion, I appreciate it. Let’s walk through our solution together to ensure it will achieve the results we want.
4. That’s a great idea. Who would like to build off what we heard?
5. What assumptions might we be making around this? What else could be true that would change our thinking for the better?
6. What are some of the roadblocks or concerns we may face?
7. How are you feeling about what we discussed and achieved today? (Ask for coaching and feedback so you can continually deliver more value during meetings.)
8. Let’s spend the last few minutes summarizing the meeting, what our next steps are, the benefits of doing so, and any deadlines, so we’re all clear and aligned around what we all need to do to achieve these results. (In pure coaching form, have your team email you their commitments so you don’t have to. Team coaching also creates accountability.)
