As a people manager, you are responsible for far too many things to be great at them all. This is perhaps why there are thousands of books available to help people managers with your important work.

One important activity you manage on a weekly or monthly rotation is the planning and execution of your regular staff meetings. My blog this month will offer two nuances that have served me well in my pursuit of more productive get-togethers with employees.

In my research to extract the best ideas on running meetings, it became clear that there is literally hundreds of websites and articles, with practical tips that can help one elevate the quality of your meetings. I will leave it to your searching capabilities to discover the wonderful options available to you, though I would suggest Timemanagementninja.com, as a good starting point. All of the suggestions available are practical, consistent and reek of common sense to help you ‘conduct’ your meetings. ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

My choosing of the word conduct was no accident. Whenever I have ever had the pleasure of seeing a world-class orchestra perform, I simply marvel at the skill of the conductor moving his baton as he or she effortlessly encourages the individual contributions of the musicians.

As you conduct your agenda driven meeting, remember two things that will exponentially elevate the engagement of the crowd:

  1. You know your people, and that is your advantage.
  2. You are responsible for the interaction in your meeting.

As you prepare for the meeting, be introspective on the reasons previous meetings may not have generated the discussion you had hoped to achieve. Since you set the tone for your meetings, history shows you may have failed on a couple of things:

  1. If you have asked for ideas from the team and have never used one of those contributions – you may have set an environment of head nodding and frustration.
  2. When you start your meeting seeking others opinions but forget to ask for those opinions – you have violated the intent for interaction.

Think about that orchestra conductor as you facilitate your meeting and prepare yourself with two key subtle actions as you elevate contributions.

You know the talkers and you know the listeners in your group, and now you must leverage that knowledge.

Tip # 1
After every extrovert offers an idea (and they always will) immediately go to one of your talented introverts, and simply ask them, “What do you think?”. You will be surprised by the quality of that quiet contribution. You will never hear this insight if you do not ask.

Enact this tip repeatedly after the talkers speak their piece.

 Tip #2
This one is so obvious that is too often ignored. Preserve five minutes at the end of each meeting and assign names to all of your agreed upon actions.

This step gives you a legitimate reason to follow up with all participants.

By transforming a meeting from a room full of noise to a room full of engaged action you will reframe the tone of your meetings.

Well done, Maestro.