Every planner has been there: Attendees walk into a meeting with their arms folded and their defenses up, convinced the meeting will lack value and inspiration. Unless you can turn their assumptions around, it is virtually guaranteed that they will not be engaged and will miss any value that the meeting could provide.
How can these meetings become more productive for each person to attend? Often, managers will call for their employees to simply try and be more positive. Unfortunately, that is not going to help, because positive thinking doesn't work. Numerous studies show that when people make a conscious effort to be more positive about something, when the situation does not change and they can no longer sustain the positivity, they feel worse about the situation than when they started.
Instead, effective meetings can be directed with useful belief. The premise is to focus less on the emotional side of positive or negative, and instead make the most of a situation that you cannot change. So, how can you maximize personal productivity at meetings?
1. Have a useful belief about the reality of the meeting
Top performers have a useful belief about mandatory meetings and focus on what information and insights can be gained. They preview the agenda and are prepared for the information they are seeking. They are attentive to key individuals and seek their opinions on relevant information. They understand they can't change their requirement to attend, so they have a useful approach to the opportunity, often having their own agenda. They are not controlled by emotions in their approach to the meeting. They are required to be there, so they identify a useful belief about the meeting.
2. Be conscious of the RAS
The Reticular Activating System (RAS) is the part of the brain that filters the millions of pieces of information you get every day. The RAS decides what a person will notice and what he or she will fail to see. For example, if he or she expects a meeting will be a waste of time, the RAS will search and find evidence to support that belief. By the same token, if a person looks for opportunity in the meeting, the RAS will find the value in that meeting.
3. Code success and replicate
The outcome of a good business meeting will be to either inform or inspire the participants. There is a certain code to what constitutes a successful meeting at each organization and with each team. It is critical to identify the components of what makes up a successful meeting. These may include:
• Clarity of the agenda and focus on outcome
• Separation between operations meetings and strategy meetings
• Increasing the pace of the meeting
• Finishing the meeting quickly after the key outcomes have been achieved.
Chris Helder is one of Australia's most outstanding speakers on the topics of communication, leadership, and influence. He is the author of the newly released book Useful Belief: Because It's Better than Positive Thinking and the best-selling book The Ultimate Book of Influence. Visit www.chrishelder.com.
This article appears in the July 2016 issue of Successful Meetings.