Transform Your Meetings (shouldn’t they be easier?)

We know the complaints about meetings, too many, too boring, poor outcomes, people talking over each other. What if we could start over?

This training is for anyone who runs meetings, or is interesting in how meetings can run completely differently.

Learn how to avoid people talking over each other, with ease. How to give everyone a voice in the room, whether they are senior, junior, talkative, or quiet.

Explore a new way to stop typical situations, where people need to think & listen at the same time. Having to focus their attention on finding a gap, so to interrupt, & have an opportunity to share their thoughts.

And what about the quality of ideas? Think about when you talk something through out loud. Quite often we rethink the first thing we said, and as we talk, our thinking deepens, & a better solution emerges.

In meetings, we are often limited to sharing the first thing that comes to mind. This isn’t our best thinking. Find an easy way to create high calibre ideas, that are well thought through, for better business success.

And there is so much more.

Each training session is limited to 6-8 people (the size of most meetings).  Please email me here to book your space, or read on for more information.

Not Your Typical Training

This training is not your typical training. There are no lengthy presentations, and we aren’t going over what we already do, and see how we can tweak it, or create a work around for certain people.

Why not? Well for many of us, we’ve done that before. We’ve tweaked the length of meetings. We’ve tried sitting, standing, having pre-meetings with people who might be considered ‘introverts’, and possibly everything in between.

Or, if we don’t yet chair meetings, we certainly have been along to them.

Instead we will be getting stuck in, trying something completely different, from the beginning. Keeping things practical, and engaging, from start to finish.

Whilst pre-reading, stand-up meetings, or changing meetings times to 9:14, can be valuable add-ons to any meeting. The core content, or interactions in the meetings, often stay the same.

We can only do what we know, and we only know what we know, which is often how everyone else does it too.

What if we re-designed meetings from scratch, what would that look like?

It could look like this:

• Interesting and interactive meetings AND without people talking over each other!
• Shorter and/or fewer meetings, because the ideas from previous meetings have been well thought through, necessitating fewer meetings to deal with issues arising, or chasing outcomes. Plus, day to day updates, can be whizzed through in an easy format.

• Inclusive and engaging meetings, where everyone’s ideas feel equal, because seniority, thinking preferences, & personality traits (ie how talkative people are), have significantly less influence.

• High calibre and diverse ideas, garnered from everyone attending, deeply thought through and creative, because of a different focus on thinking time, and greater buy-in to ideas generated.
• Quality listening and feedback skills, along with new ways to consider resolving internal challenges
• Team cohesion, whilst team motivation, isn’t the focus of the training, teams have found this naturally arises from improved listening, feedback, resolution, communication, & appreciation skills. Trust is built and more open and honest conversations happen, with greater support.
• An opportunity for fewer meetings, those repetitive meetings that talk about the same thing over and over, without moving forward can be reduced. With more ideas being well though through from the outset, clearer actions follow, often with greater buy in.

And of course, from higher cohesion, improved morale, and better meetings with outcomes, it naturally helps support productivity, & increased performance.

What do you think? Is time to give your meetings a new lease of life?  Want know more, please read on, otherwise you can book your space by contacting me here.

Do I need to be a team manager?

This training is for you whether you run meetings, might run meetings in the future, or simply like to develop yourself and want to learn more about how meetings might be run differently.

Did you know?

Doodle interviewed over 6500 professionals & examined 19 million meetings from 2018.

They found the cumulative yearly cost, of poorly organised meetings, to companies in the UK alone, was calculated at £45,494,580,370 (over £45 billion), or 384,657 years !

Some of their other findings may surprise you. Or perhaps not…

Financial impact & value of meetings

Doodle found that professionals in the UK:

• spend on average 2 hours every week in ineffective or unnecessary meetings
• typically attend 3 meetings every week
• believe 2/3rds of meetings are unnecessary
• & 40% believe it is the biggest cost to their organisation

Do you think this has gone up or down in 2020 for your organisation?

Good & Bad Meetings

‘Good meetings‘ were reported to include being face to face (a challenge currently), preferably held in the morning, have clear objectives & agendas, & not too many involved.

‘Bad meetings’ were caused predominantly by people:

1. – interrupting each other
2. – not listening to the contributions of others
3. – arriving late or leaving early
4. – not contributing to the conversation
5. – taking phone calls or texting during meetings
6. – talking about nothing for long periods of time

Sound familiar? What about point scoring, unhealthy competition, & more?

This training, will significantly reduce all of the above (if not eliminate many of them).

What will we cover?

Your Training Day Includes (but is not limited to)

Key methods that combine to:

• limit interruptions, and monologues, dramatically
• increase inclusivity, and diversity of ideas, substantially
• improve the quality of the meetings, including by generating the freshest thinking for new ideas (these methods can also be used in breakouts, workshops, & peer meetings)
• produce high calibre ideas, which are well thought through, including challenges, or limits, that might hold us back, for better business success

We will also look at:

• Specific approaches to enhance the quality of idea generation & managing meeting conversations
• Significantly enhanced listening, feedback, positivity, & inclusivity skills for attendees
• Tools for safely collating new ideas & approaches where an individual feels stuck, i.e. with a project
• Tips for removal of assumptions which can get in the way of new company opportunities
• Presenting & sharing information with ease; a different approach to formal meeting presentations (no this won’t be about presentation skills, and you won’t be required to ‘do a presentation’ I promise!)
• An opportunity to practice the key ingredients of running a real meeting on the day

Sound interesting?

I hope so and I hope you can join us.

Why have you got different dates and times?

For flexibility there are training sessions that run on half days, or full days, starting at different times to allow for school runs, or early starters. You can choose which one best first you.

UPDATED – 2023 Dates not yet released

How many people will attend and how much does it cost?

The maximum for each group will be 6-8pax. The need for a small group will make more sense on the day! (It also reflects the size of most meetings).

The cost for the event increases as we get closer to the date, so:

Early Bird 72 Hour Launch Price – £145* per person (book two people at the same time for £245)

Early Saver – £175 per person (book two people at the same time for £325 (£162.50 each)

Full Price – £250 per person

Please get in touch to find out more and to book direct.  If you prefer Eventbrite (additional fees apply), you can also book here.

By signing up to this course you are agreeing to the Terms & Conditions for External Online Training Events which can be found here.

Is it time to Transform Your Meetings?

I look forward to seeing you at this engaging and interactive training day which is based on Transforming Meetings® by Nancy Kline.

If you have any questions, and to book this training, or in-house training, please get in touch on [email protected]