Maximizing Meeting Value and Participation

Our team is saying “No” to our co-work session.

We want to have a working meeting with them to get important information and make decisions. Since they declined, now we are missing an important viewpoint and source of design inputs! Plus, it could prove disastrous, later, when we have a pass/go decision on our concept designs.

In this week’s episode we talk about ways to overcome this challenge, beyond typical schedule availability. Tune in as we uncover practical strategies that make co-working sessions truly valuable which will help us in maximizing meeting value and participation.

Why our teammates say, “No thanks”.

Dori Clark is a business professor and author. She talks about being strategic with our time and priorities. One of the points she makes is to say ‘no’ more to meetings where we don’t need to be, doing things you don’t need to do.

Our Cross-Functional Teammates are doing it, too!

They’re judging our invitation on several merits. Some things they consider:

Was it value-added? Did people walk away from our exercise with better understanding?
Were they respected and given a voice?
Was their opinion considered, or was it just lip service (saying we wanted their input, but didn’t really want it)?
What happened to the information – did it affect the design?

Maximizing Meeting Value and Participation

Our mindset: our teammates are our customers of our meeting
Be prepared: information (scope and background), supplies, and a plan for co-work
Own the meeting – facilitate and guide the team, make it easy for them
Start on time – end on time or early
Allow time for proper co-work session closure: teamwork stuff – action items, notes, meeting evaluation (if doing)
Follow-up: show how the meeting results are tied to design inputs

Being consistent with the above will help the most.