Meetings that Produce Results

Although most people are not body language experts, we can all tell when something exciting is happening. We know when we feel stimulated and when conversation is flowing easily. Watch people’s responses during the consultative dialog for clues of how they are engaging. Attend to both the quantity and the quality of participation, to both speaking and listening. Emotion can raise participation and intensity of the dialog.

If you notice that interest is waning, it usually works to ask people if they want to move to another topic. Perhaps the current topic does not pertain to all participants and can be handled at another time by those involved with that issue. Speeding up the dialogue and asking relevant questions may stimulate more participation.

Summarize and document

The summary of a consultative dialog contains only this important information: key issues, decisions, actions, accountabilities, and results. Remember that one person should be assigned as note taker and another as the summarizer of the meeting—one who provides feedback sheets, synthesizes them, and sums up people’s observations and thoughts. The summary is distributed to CD attendees, and may also be appropriate for those who did not attend.

Your role as the leader of a profitable business demands an ability to lead and inspire. You need to incorporate mechanisms that make it effortless to build cohesiveness and continuity into your day-to-day operations. When you nurture an environment that encourages challenge, growth, and camaraderie among people with varied experience and expertise, all can learn from one another and increase their competence.

We all spend many hours at our workplace. When the give and take is good, it is very good, and when it’s bad….well, it’s bad. The key difference between participation in consultative dialogs and participation in meetings is the way people interact.