How To Start A Meeting To Engage Participants

The Two Key Questions for How To Start A Meeting

At the beginning of a meeting, people typically want to know two things:

• Why am I here?
• Why should I care?

Fix unproductive meetings across my organization!

Answering these two questions can help you engage your participants and set your meeting up for success. The acronym I.E.E.I. is a helpful reminder of the things to include in your opening to start a meeting.

Effective facilitation of a meeting requires 9 key elements. Here are some tips to consider:

• Start the meeting on time: When you start a meeting as a host make sure you’re on time as this sets the tone for the meeting and demonstrates respect for everyone’s time.
• Use IEEI opening: IEEI stands for inform, excite, empower, and involve. This means informing participants of the purpose of the meeting, exciting them by explaining why the meeting is important and what’s in it for them, empowering them by describing their role in the meeting, and involving them by asking an engagement question that furthers the meeting purpose.
• Confirm the agenda: This helps ensure that everyone is on the same page and that nothing is missed.
• Review the ground rules: This helps establish expectations for behavior during the meeting and sets the tone for respectful communication.
• Review the parking lot: If there are items that can’t be addressed during the meeting, add them to the parking lot for follow-up.
• Make introductions if needed: If there are new participants, take a moment to introduce them to the group.
• Encourage participation: Make sure everyone has a chance to speak and share their thoughts. Encourage active listening and respectful communication.
• Stay on track: Keep the meeting focused and moving forward. If the discussion gets off track, gently bring it back to the topic at hand.
• Summarize and follow up: At the end of the meeting, summarize the key points and any decisions made. Follow up with participants as needed to ensure action items are completed.

How to Start a Meeting Using I.E.E.I. Framework

The I.E.E.I. framework stands for: Inform – Let the participants know the purpose of the meeting and the product to be produced.

Excite – Explain the benefits of the meeting and why this meeting should be important to them.

Empower – Describe the role they will play or the authority that has been given to them.

Involve – Get them involved immediately through an engagement question that furthers the meeting purpose.

Unfortunately, meeting leaders often start meetings by reviewing the agenda and diving straight into the first agenda item. As a result, participants often aren’t sure of the purpose of the meeting, the products to be produced, why the meeting is beneficial, or why the meeting should be important to them. In essence, meetings often begin with an ineffective start that can negatively affect the rest of the meeting.

Effective Facilitation Techniques to Start a Meeting as a Host

Starting a meeting effectively is just the beginning of the process of facilitating an effective meeting. Effective facilitation techniques include:

• Start the meeting on time.
• Your opening words (IEEI).
• Confirm the agenda.
• Review the ground rules.
• Review the parking boards.
• Make introductions if needed.
• Encourage participation.
• Stay on track.
• Summarize and follow up.

The start can take as little as five minutes and as long as forty-five minutes or more depending on the size of the group, the length of the meeting, and the steps you use. You should adjust the list as appropriate for the meetings you lead.

How to Start a Meeting Effectively: Going Deeper into I.E.E.I.

Let’s go deeper into each part of the I.E.E.I. framework to help you understand how to use it effectively.

Inform

Start by informing the participants of the purpose of the meeting and the product to be produced. This can be done by using words such as:

“The purpose of this meeting is…When we are done, we will walk away with…”

Using these words informs everyone of why you’re there (the purpose) and what you’ll have when you’re done (the product). This helps get everyone on the same page.

Excite

The excite segment is the most overlooked part of the I.E.E.I. framework. It answers the question, “Why should I care?” Without the excite, you may have people in the room, but are they really at the table?

To excite your participants, make statements that answer the question for them, “What’s in it for me?” Using words like “you” or “your” at least four times in the excite portion of the I.E.E.I. can help ensure you do this well. Compare these two sample openings to see which one does a better job of exciting:

Excite Sample I

• Good morning, it’s a pleasure to be here this morning.
• Let me start by reviewing why we are here.
• The purpose of this meeting is to fix our hiring process. When we are done we will have three things: a diagram that shows how the new hiring process will work, a list of benefits of the new process, and a step-by-step plan for getting this new process implemented.
• What is exciting about this? If we are successful, we will walk away with a new hiring process that will help our organization get the right people hired and get them hired quickly.

Excite Sample II

• Good morning, it’s a pleasure to be here this morning.
• Let me start by reviewing why we are here.
• The purpose of this meeting is to fix our hiring process. When we are done we will have three things: a diagram that shows how the new hiring process will work, a list of benefits of the new process, and a step-by-step plan for getting this new process implemented.
• What is exciting about this? Today you may have people on your staff who don’t have the skills or the attitude you need. As a result, you are having to work much harder to make up for what they aren’t doing. This is your opportunity to put strategies in place to ensure that you get the people you need to get the work done.

The second sample is by far the better excite statement. It does a better job of describing the benefits to the person. But did you notice one other thing? Count the number of times the words “you” or “your” show up in the excite statements.

A key secret to getting people excited about participating in a meeting is to explain what is in it for them. And you can help ensure you do this well by including the words “you” or “your” at least four times in the excite portion of the IEEI.

Empower

The goal in empowering participants is to ensure that they are clear on the power they have while in the meeting. When people feel empowered, they tend to be less hesitant to participate in discussion and more willing to offer their thoughts and ideas.

Below are three samples of empowering. Often a single, focused, empowering statement is adequate. Other times you may find that multiple statements are needed to empower a group that is used to being told what to do.

Empower Examples

• You all were hand-picked by your managers to serve on this hiring process task force because they felt you had the understanding of what is needed and the vision to create something much better than we currently have.
• The organization is looking to each of you to bring the ideas and the focus that will create a much better higher process.
• While we are not the final decision makers, the Leadership Team is looking to this team to create a recommendation with the justification needed to bring our hiring process to the next level and beyond.

Involve

The involvement step is designed to engage the participants early and often. The earlier they are involved, the more willing they will be to participate throughout the meeting. This step is accomplished by asking a relevant question that is directly tied to the meeting’s purpose.

The involvement question should be thought-provoking and open-ended. The question should also be one that allows participants to share their thoughts and ideas on the topic without feeling threatened or judged. The goal is to create an open and honest environment where everyone can contribute and feel heard.

Examples of good involvement questions include:

1. What are your thoughts on our current hiring process?
   How have you seen hiring processes work effectively in other organizations?
   What do you think are the biggest challenges we face in improving our hiring process?

Involve Examples

• Key Topics Approach
  • Think about the meeting purpose.
  • If we are going to accomplish this purpose, there are probably specific topics that you know we need to cover, specific issues that we have to address, or maybe specific ideas that we should discuss.
  • Let’s build the list. If we are going to be successful today, what topics do we need to talk about?
• Personal Outcomes Approach
  • Let’s assume this meeting was highly successful.
  • Think about the things that resulted, the outcomes that occurred, and the things that would make you say, “This was a great meeting.”
  • Let’s build the list. Given our purpose and products, what are the outcomes you personally would like to see come out of today’s meeting?
• One-minute Check-in Approach
  • It has been several days since we were all together. Let’s start with each person giving a quick one-minute check-in.
  • We were last together on [date]. Since that time, there probably have been one or more significant events that have occurred in your personal or professional life.
  • Consider the major events that have occurred and pick one that was significant for you. Let’s go around the room. What is a significant event that has happened to you since we were last together?

Learning how to start a meeting effectively is critical to its success. By using the IEEI framework, you can ensure that participants understand why they are there and what they are expected to accomplish. By starting with a strong opening, you can excite and empower participants to engage in the meeting and contribute their thoughts and ideas. Finally, involving participants early and often will help create an environment that encourages collaboration and results in a more successful meeting overall.

Remember, starting a meeting off on the right foot takes practice. By incorporating these tips and techniques, you can become a more effective facilitator and ensure that your meetings are more productive, engaging, and successful.

How to Open a Meeting: A Sample Opening Script

Leaders often tell us they know what to cover but freeze on the actual words. So here is a sample script for opening a meeting. It runs about ninety seconds and walks straight through all four I.E.E.I. steps. Adapt the specifics; keep the sequence.

The wording changes with the room. What does not change is the order. Open with logistics and you have spent your most valuable ninety seconds on the least valuable content. Open a meeting by answering the two questions and you have a group that is already working.

The stakes here are larger than one meeting. Research reported in Harvard Business Review’s “Stop the Meeting Madness” found that executives now spend an average of nearly 23 hours a week in meetings, up from less than 10 hours in the 1960s. And organizational psychologist Steven Rogelberg, in The Surprising Science of Meetings, estimates employees sit through 55 million meetings a day in the United States, with meetings that “fail to engage” among the most common complaints. Ninety seconds spent answering the two questions is the cheapest intervention available to you.

Looking for more techniques to lead high‑impact meetings?

Discover The Effective Facilitator, our flagship course used by leading organizations to transform everyday meetings into focused, engaging sessions that get results.

About Michael Wilkinson

Michael Wilkinson, Founder & Managing Director, Certified Master Facilitator, is the author of this article. His practical meeting and facilitation methods help leaders create sessions that produce engagement, decisions, and action.