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The Best Kept Secret In Business! Team Managed Meetings Save Time, Energy, and Build Relationships

Written by: Peter deLisser

Article Overview: Meeting Leader: "Welcome to our Team Meeting." I Accept 100% Responsibility For My Participation- MAYBE! The Job of A Facilitator Team Managed Meetings Are A Company's Great Asset

Free Download - What Communication Habit(s) are you Addicted to? By Peter deLisser
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The Best Kept Secret In Business! Team Managed Meetings Save Time, Energy, and Build Relationships

When was the last time you went to a meeting which accomplished the recognized standard for evaluating the success of any meeting - the results will be worth twice the salaries of the Team Members in the meeting- time wise. A Consistently Productive Meeting! What would a meeting which met recognized standards sound like? It might start this way:

Meeting Leader: "Welcome to our Team Meeting."

I Accept 100% Responsibility For My Participation- MAYBE! A major concept of Team Meeting Management is to expect every participant to be as responsible for the results of a meeting as the meeting manager.

That means that a team leader conducting a meeting would willing accept help from people during the meeting. Can you imagine how more productive meetings would be if participants accepted responsibility for the quality of meetings in the following ways:

a)(no advanced agenda) "I 'd appreciate it if we could agree to agenda items with some expected time frames to cover each "

b)(agenda is sidetracked) "I'm confused. Have we added an additional item to the agenda?"

c)(directed at side conversation)"Excuse me. I am having a hard time hearing "Mary."

d)(major resources not heard from)"I'd be interested to hear what Bill and Mary think."

Are statement/questions like these risky? You bet they can be

By Day's End 300 People Know How Productive The Meeting Was

However, we all have a choice to make in every meeting-to be a victim or be responsible. If we choose not to be a 100% responsible participant, for practical reasons, then we are also responsible to refrain from publicly complaining about the meeting afterwards. Meeting research indicates that before the end of the day, the grapevine will have notified up to 300 people in a company what the "results" of a meeting were. At least every participant can be responsible not to spread the word about how poor the meeting was, the one he/she sat in and choose to do nothing to improve.

The Job of A Facilitator The Facilitator's job is NOT to take over the meeting, which is what some Team leaders believe he/she might do, BUT TO ASSIST the meeting manager to conduct a productive meeting that meets his/her objectives and increases/demonstrates respect for each participant.

This partnership does not come easily. Trust needs to be developed.

Team Managed Meetings Work

What follows is an example of how Team Meeting Management works. As a Facilitator, I helped the Meeting Manager plan the agenda and timeframes for a national meeting in which representatives from across the country had been assigned specific presentations to make. This all-day meeting fell behind by lunch time because the presentations were being well received. The Meeting Manager continually dismissed my suggestions he limit the length of discussions after each presentation. At lunch I gave him a choice: "After lunch you may want to make an announcement that we will not have enough time for all the presentations." He grimaced. "We can't do that. They all put a lot of work into their assignments." Then you may choose to announce " we must stick to a strict time frame this afternoon. I've asked Pete to limit discussion after each presentation."

We made it through all the presentations with only brief discussions after each.

The Facilitator presents the issues. Meeting Manager is responsible for the choices.

Team Managed Meetings Are A Company's Great Asset Most Team Members spend as much as 50% of their time in a variety of meetings. Well run meetings have the potential for increased productivity and building relationships. They can be excellent opportunities to develop younger Team Members.

Unfortunately, meetings not managed by a Team waste time, energy and risk relationships.

Fortunately, Team Managed Meetings expect the Team Manager AND the Participants to jointly accept 100% responsibility for the final results.

Related Articles
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  Motivate Your Sales Team by Making Your Meetings STICK!
  Ready to Save Time?

Home > Sales > Peter deLisser > The Best Kept Secret In Business Team Managed Meetings Save Time Energy and Build Relationships
Article Tags: Asset, Productive Meetings, Teams

About the Author: Peter deLisser
RSS for Peter's articles - Visit Peter's website

Peter deLisser is President of Responsible Communications.  He provides the ABCs of Leadership for business organizations - Accelerates a Leader's Personal Communications, Builds Productivity in New (and Old) Teams, and Creates 100% Responsible Leadership Meetings - In-Person, Electronically, and Globally. 

National Recognition: Fortune Magazine featured Pete in their article "The Executive's New Coach."  His book "Be Your Own Executive Coach" was published nationally in 1999, in Japanese 2001, Korean 2006. He built a 14 Person Marketing Team on 5 continents. The International Listening Association named him "2006 Business Listener Of The Year."  Also ILA published his articles, "100% Responsibility Turns Fantasy into Reality" and "Give the Gift of Listening".

Clients: His clients are Fortune 500, including BusinessWeek, Philip Morris, Hoffman La Roche, and McGraw-Hill.

Previous Experience: Includes Manager or Human Resources, Executive Outplacement Counseling, National Sales Training Manager, Vice President of Sales.  Earlier in his career he coached college football at Williams College and Columbia University.



Click here to visit Peter's website
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More from Peter deLisser
Our Greatest Gift to Ourselves and Every Other Human Being
Which Did You Do Lose Your Temper or SelfConfidence
What Communication Habits are you Addicted to
Make Every Conversation a Sales Call
100 Responsible Listening Turns Fantasy into Reality


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