The 20 Roles of a Masterful Meeting Leader
By Michael Wilkinson, CMF
Managing Director, Leadership Strategies, Inc.
Masterful Meeting is the term we use at Leadership Strategies to refer to a vision of what all meetings should be. In summary, a Masterful Meeting can be described as follows:
| A Masterful Meeting is well-prepared, well-executed, and results-oriented with a timely start, a decisive close, and a clear follow-up plan. |
Meeting leaders are ultimately responsible for the quality and effectiveness of their meetings. To achieve a masterful meeting, a meeting facilitator should do the following:
Planning and Preparing
1. Determine the meeting type, purpose, and products.
2. Select participants.
3. Identify probable issues that need to be addressed.
4. Develop the proposed agenda.
5. Select the processes that will be used in executing the agenda, and define the engagement strategies.
6. Hold discussions as needed prior to the meeting.
7. Select the meeting location, and handle other logistics.
8. Prepare and distribute the meeting notice.
Starting Meetings
9. Setup the meeting location, including any parking boards that will be used.
10. Greet people when they arrive.
11. Provide a two-minute warning prior to the start of the meeting.
12. Start the meeting by stating the purpose and products.
13. Ask participants to identify key issues to be discussed.
14. Review the proposed agenda; modify as needed to address the key issues; establish time limits for each item.
15. Remind the participants of the ground rules and parking boards.
16. Make introductions if needed.
Running, Closing, and Following-Up
17. Review prior action items to ensure follow-up.
For each agenda item: (FIRST CLASS)
Focus the participants by providing an explanation of how the item furthers the meeting’s purpose.
Instructby providing clear and concise directions on how the agenda item will be executed.
Record the appropriate information gathered during the meeting, or ensure the information is recorded.
Stepthe participants through the agenda item, using the appropriate information gathering process.
Tracktime to ensure that the participants are using time appropriately.
Controland resolveany dysfunctional behavior quickly and effectively.
Listenforoff-topic discussions and redirect to a parking board to keep the meeting focused.
Addressdisagreements or conflicts that emerge.
Seekall opinions, and invite people to speak.
Summarize the results.
18. Close the meeting.
Review the items covered in the meeting.
Confirm the decisions made.
Address outstanding issues.
Ensure that all actions have names and dates assigned.
19. Perform meeting follow-ups.
Document and distribute meeting notes.
20. Follow-up to hold people accountable to assigned actions.
You can learn more about meeting techniques in our course, The Effective Facilitator. Click here for additional information. Look for The Secrets to Masterful Meetings coming November, 2005.
Michael Wilkinson is the Managing Director of Leadership Strategies – The Facilitation Company, and a much sought after trainer, facilitator and speaker. He is a Certified Master Facilitator and a Certified Professional Facilitator. As a past president of the Southeast Association of Facilitators and a board member of the National Institute of Facilitation, Michael is a national leader in the facilitation industry. You can get more tips from Michael’s book, The Secrets of Facilitation available on Amazon.com.
