How to Facilitate a Non-Voluntary Meeting

Stockholders meet. Work teams meet. Study groups meet. People today spend an incredible amount of time in meetings. If they're not in a meeting, they're imagining excuses to miss a meeting. Some meetings, however, do not lend themselves to excuses--if you get called, you had better be there. This type of non-voluntary gathering is not likely to create warm and fuzzy feelings around the conference table. What can you do as the meeting facilitator to encourage participation and useful conversation?

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

1. Send out an agenda in advance of the meeting. Show your colleagues that this meeting is all business.
2. Invite comments and input in advance of the meeting. Create a handout that includes your colleagues' comments and observations. It's not necessary to mention names; in sharing their comments, you demonstrate that you value your colleagues' time and efforts.
3. At the meeting, stick to your agenda. Bring strays back to the task at hand. Value others' time.
4. Encourage full participation at the meeting. Make certain that everyone knows it is not a one-person show. They're in attendance because the company values their input.
5. Generate a plan of action before the meeting adjourns. Ask for volunteers or assign tasks to those in attendance to make them stakeholders.
6. Continue to communicate with attendees to keep them informed and to prepare for the follow-up meeting.