How can leaders structure meetings so more people feel they can share their ideas?

#MakeMeetingsWork

Scott Olster, from LinkedIn, just sent me a kind e-mail asking if I could share my thoughts regarding structured and more participative meetings once many of us are working remote.

So let´s see if I can contribute for his two questions:

How can leaders structure meetings so more people feel they can share their ideas? And as companies adopt hybrid work environments, how can we make sure remote attendees feel heard just as much as those in the office?

The key word is “structure”. A structure for a meeting is to define who will speak, how and when.

I would like to remember Alan Mulally, former Boeng President and Ford Motor Company CEO. Alan had a famous and well-structured regular meeting called “Business Plan Review”. He had an effective process to carry the meeting on.

First, the meeting had rules. It sounds a little bit strange nowadays, but rules are important to assure those who have contributions to make be listened.

So, the previous meeting steps are:

#1 Advice the participants to bring their contribution as organized as possible.

#2 Explain to them how much time they have and

#3 How you, leader, would like the information to be brought.

Mulally was strict with his directors: they should be on time, no excuses for missing the meeting, they should specifically say their name, review the business plan, status, forecast, areas of attention and use a green-yellow-red scoring system for good-concerned-poor. (*)

I recommend you create your own structure.

This is an especially important point of participative meetings: people knowing previously what to bring and how. In my 20 years of experience as a business coach, I have seen presentations with dozens of slides where one would be enough. Also, incredibly talented people with poor communication skills ruined their images speaking too much.

The leaders should be more concern about giving to the remote attendees the same time and structure for those in the office. However, during the meeting, good managers are true masters of ceremony. I mean, they must control who talks and who listen all the time. Especially when it is the moment to the remote ones.

One thing particularly important, ask to them to speak louder than usual and when using slides to express their ideas in charts with as few information as possible.

Whenever you are in an online meeting, you should be concise because it is hard to listen someone in a video for long periods. Besides, not all of us have the ability of those “anima zoom” guys – I hope you know what I mean.

Do not forget to interrupt those who want to speak to much, and to incentive those who are shy or need a hand to speak more.

Afterall, well-balanced team has introverts and extroverts professionals. A little help for the first is necessary, but, in general, they reveal themselves as exceptionally good presenters in a structured meeting.

And the leaders are responsible to provide the structure.

Wish you success!

Silvio Celestino, 54, was the first executive coach in Brazil who scored 100% in his coaching graduation. He was former International Coach Federation VP – Chapter São Paulo – (2006 – 2010). He was also the unique Brazilian Executive Coach at 10th Executive Coaching Conference in Cincinnati – 2015. For about 20 years, Celestino has been working as executive coach, in Brazil and overseas, to help top executives to improve their leadership skills, resilience, strategic view and culture managing skills, among other abilities. He has coached executives in a wide range of industries: Kraft Heinz, Grey Brazil, Votorantim Group, Ermenegildo Zegna GSK, FTD Education,Dassault, Bradesco Bank, Ominicom Group, Publicis Group, Sovena, ManPower, Usiminas, JBS – Swift, among others.

Founder of Alliance Coaching, São Paulo, Brazil.

(*) P. 170 - Goldsmith, Marshall, (2015), Triggers – Creating Behavior That Lasts – Becoming the Person you want to be – Crown Publishing Group - https://amzn.to/3hwjBpc