Improving Planning Meetings: Bring a Martian

Leadership Coaching Notes March 2007

Improving Planning Meetings: Bring a Martian

This month’s Notes gives you three ideas that helped leaders improve participation in their meetings. Read on to learn which can support your success and strengthen you as a coach to your emerging leaders.

Leadership Challenge

• How enthusiastic are you about your team’s planning meetings?
• Do you get the quality of participation you want?

Case in Point

Katherine was tired of boring meetings. She wanted others’ input. She wanted them to think creatively and rigorously. The team needed a clear, well-tested and smart plan they all supported, but when they met, the same one or two took most of the air time. Too many sat passively. They seemed to think she had a plan and that the meeting was just an exercise. They thought she would do what she wanted regardless of their ideas. What could she do?

What Worked

Structure preparation: Katherine started asking for short written preparation. These assignments made every team member realize that their work would be reviewed by everyone. They elevated the importance of contributing creatively and rigorously.

What you can do: Define what background information will help your group face the hard facts of your situation. What are competitors doing that threatens you? What are key clients saying about you? What changes will surprise you next year if you don’t address them proactively? Assign key questions to specific people and ask for a one-page bullet-point report before the meeting. It often takes several such assignments for people to deliver high quality, but once they learn from each other, the quality of preparation, conversation and results will improve.

Don’t blink first: Katherine realized that between wanting to move quickly and having already spent time thinking about options, she got impatient. When she checked, she typically waited about 3 seconds between asking a question and giving her answer. As a result, she consumed about 80% of the airtime in meetings! Katherine learned to endure silence longer than her team. She used others’ discomfort with silence to motivate them to contribute. It worked.

What you can do: How long do you pause between inviting input and speaking again? Instead of holding your breath, count your breaths during silence. It will give you something to do and will relax you as you wait. Remember, many participants need some silence to form their ideas. Think of pausing as “cooking” time before they serve up their contributions.

Bring 3 new chairs: Katherine decided to have fun. She added three chairs around the table and put a hat in front of each. Periodically, she asked specific team members to take the chairs, put on the hats and speak as that role would speak.
She named one chair “competing organization,” put their logo/name on a baseball hat and asked someone to react to the ideas presented. If the person hated them, it was a good guess the team was on to something good! She gave someone a “devil’s advocate” hat, with horns, and asked that role to criticize and find weaknesses in their ideas. She asked a Martian, complete with wiggling antennae, to speak from a totally unbounded, novel perspective. Her creativity brought more than a few raised eyebrows and laughs, but also new energy and ideas to the team.

What you can do: What other perspectives would add new richness to your team’s discussions? What roles could you add to your discussions? Choose team members who are extroverted and most likely to play along with your first tries at this craziness, but keep playing. Keep stretching people to think in new, broader and deeper ways. Appreciate their efforts. Make it fun. Permission to “play” will invite new creativity and results.

Coaching Impact

It took several meetings and a lot of conscious effort from Katherine, but as she encouraged more from her team, she got it. Sometimes, she got more than she expected. At first they were polite, but before long people challenged each other and expressed strong feelings. She was more than happy to have a new facilitation challenge. The new fervor was a lot more productive than silence. She and her team valued their new clarity, engagement and buy-in to their plans.

Whats Next

If you or someone you know wants to facilitate more productive meetings, please call me for a free consultation.
Use and share these practices. If you or leaders you coach are experiencing challenges similar to Katherine’s and want to discuss how to achieve similar results, call me. I am never too busy for your referrals.

I offer a free consultation to explore your goals and how a coaching program can help. I’ve worked with hundreds of leaders to improve their careers, lives, and legacies. I welcome your inquires and look forward to the opportunity to assist you.

All the best,

Meredith Kimbell
Executive Advisor,Strategy Consultant
Corporate Adventure

Leadership Coaching Notes uses real or composite client examples drawn from 25 years of coaching and consulting with leaders committed to solving their toughest personal, interpersonal and organizational issues.
Unless otherwise attributed, all material is copyrighted by Meredith Kimbell © 2011. All rights reserved. You may reprint any or all of this material if you include the following:
“Leadership Coaching Notes © 2011 Meredith Kimbell, Corporate Adventure, Reston, VA. Used with permission.”