Make Meetings Work
Making meetings work can be quite a task sometimes. You have to manage all of the personalities and business issues that arise. You have to create a leadership style that people will respect and gladly work with you to achieve your goals. Not all employees are born with natural leadership talent. Many do not have a charisma that draws people toward them, and makes them want to follow. Great leaders learn and hone their skills through experience and education. Nevertheless, can anyone learn to lead an effective meeting?
The answer is yes.
Making meetings become more effective is a learned experience. Anyone can do it once they know the right things to do. Once you have gained the basic groundwork of running a meeting, you start to see issues or problems before they start; you have the knowledge and the skills to prevent it from happening. This helps you gain confidence in yourself as a leader. You begin to hone those soft skills, and learn how to deal with the personalities. Having the foresight and knowledge is critical to making meetings work.
It was the beginning of a new year in the IT department, and the team assembled for their first group meeting. The manager of the group entered in with a big smile and exclaimed, "Welcome back everyone; I have a treat for you." Walking in behind him was a tall skinny man, oddly dressed, as if his fashion style never left the 80s. Both sat down at the conference room table, and the manager started the meeting with introductions.
"Everyone, this is Bob. He is coming over here from UCLA, where he earned his PhD in computer data structures. He is going to be our new team leader and take over the weekly software validation meeting."
The staff meeting completed and everyone moved on his or her way. Several days later, the team was preparing to start the first software validation meeting. Then the meeting notice went out from Bob that the meeting was canceled. The next week several members began asking about the meeting, only to receive another cancellation notice from Bob.
After the third week of cancellations, the staff manager was concerned that the validation and testing group had not accomplished anything. He found Bob hard at work at the server room, diagnosing and testing code. "Bob, why haven't you started the team meetings with your validation staff?" the manager politely asked.
Bob responded meekly, "I'm a research scientist; we never were asked to lead teams. I am deeply terrified to stand up and speak in front of crowds. I passed out on my research defense. I can't do it."
The staff manager knew Human Resources had made a terrible mistake hiring Bob to be the technical guru and team leader. He had his PhD in computer science, but he never developed his soft skills professionally. The manager thought to himself, "We have a problem and I have to correct this somehow."
6.1 Using Audiovisuals to Make Meetings Work
With any presentation, an audiovisual presentation helps keep everyone's attention centered at the display screen. This keeps your team members from losing attention while going over the topics.
An audiovisual presentation helps display pictures or graphics better than explaining it. They say a picture is worth a thousand words.
Use animation and bright colors to keep the team's attention. Use of color makes the background pleasing to the audience, and keeps their attention during the meeting.
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