Do you want to be the go-to meeting facilitator in your company, by the end
of this video I'm going to share with you, how you can be a good meeting
facilitator, by showing you all the techniques that I have used with my
clients over thousands of meetings that I have facilitated, and if you stay tuned
to the end of this video, I'm gonna share with you something really cool that I
use in all my meetings, hi if you're new here welcome, for the best advice on
career and project management, subscribe to my channel, hit that bell
button, and I'll be sending you a new video every Wednesday, over the past 20
plus years, I have facilitated many different kinds of meetings, like
strategic meetings, project management meetings,
process meetings, and I'm telling you, there is a pattern, and a way to do this
successfully, and I'm gonna share with you how you can take what I've learned,
and become a really good meeting facilitator, so if you're excited about
mastering facilitation skills give this video a like, and let's get to it, be
prepared, if you're gonna master your facilitation skills, it is critical that
you understand everything before the meeting, it is all in the preparation, so
what do you think you want to talk about, what kind of meeting is it, who
needs to be in the meeting, how much time do you have allocated, is there any
brainstorming that you have to do, not only that, based on what type of meeting
you have, and what you're gonna be doing, what do you need to bring to the meeting,
do you need any post it notes, black sharpies, what things are gonna help you
be prepared to execute that perfect meeting agenda and objectives, alright
not only is it about preparation, but it's having a real good detail agenda,
and the overall objective of the meeting, too often this is missed, so this is
really important as a meeting facilitator that you have these things,
now when you do have objectives in meetings, you need to send them out at
least two days prior before, the absolute minimal mental amount of time is 24
hours, you've got to give people notice as to what you're going to be talking
about, now here's a little technique that I do that I'm gonna share with you, is
sometimes I may not know what my agenda is, I have a concept, an idea, but I cannot
lay it out, but I do know my objective, so even though I may have given the invite
out like months in advance, or even weeks in advance, the objective is there, and I
say, meeting agenda to follow, so at least people
understand what it is that we're doing, that is a huge deal, because that's gonna ensure
you have the right people in the room, set the ground rules, okay, so now you're
at the meeting, you've gone through the agenda, now you have to set the ground
rules, I want you to check out a video that I have on details regarding these
ground rules, but to give you something really high-level, these are the rules
that you give to people to say, this is how we're gonna behave in the meeting,
and some really specific things are, like phones and computers off, tell me if
you've ever had this happen below in the comments, that people are actually
doing other work in a meeting, on their computer and phone, I mean how rude
is that right, so you want to do that, you want to make sure that you want to have
permission to time people out, that's another technique to that's really cool,
to ensure that you keep people on track, so meeting rules, and setting up exactly
how people are supposed to behave is critical, and it's going to help you
master your facilitation skills, involve everyone, alright, first and foremost, if
you're not involving everyone in your meeting then they shouldn't be there,
okay, I don't know how many times I have been in meetings, where people are just
hanging out, that's not a good use of their time, let alone your time, so
involve everyone, be very specific with who you're inviting, and ensure that you
have activities that's going to utilize the subject matter expert of
every person in that room, time is precious,
do not waste it, if you're having a meeting call it with purpose, and ensure
that you have the right people in the room, stay on time, okay, not only are you
the meeting facilitator, you are a time keeper, and if I had my watch I'd be
pointing to it right now, like hello, keep on time, that is your job, it is really
important that you let people know in your agenda, you even want to make sure
that you put some time designated for it, and if people are going over it, you're
gonna have to do a little time out, ask them, what are you gonna give up on the
agenda, to ensure that you can still stay on track, if people really need to
continue with a conversation, so that is your job, as a meeting facilitator, is
also a time keeper, next steps, or as I like to say action steps, so from now on,
at the end of every single meeting, you are going to set aside 10 minutes to
review all the action items, have you ever been to a meeting where you had
action items, or kind of thrown out in the room, and then everyone walked out,
and you're not too sure if the right people got it, or let alone, when were they
due, so this is gonna close everything off. and that's what distinguishes really
good and great meeting facilitators, and is going to hone your facilitation
skills, so ensure you set aside that time go through every single action, and
ensure that it has a responsibility and a due date associated with it, you came
to a meeting for a reason, and that reason wasn't just a hangout,
it was to actually get things done, so of course there is gonna be actions coming out of
it, and ensure that you assign them accordingly, okay, now that you're on your
way to becoming a really great facilitator, remember how I talked about
ground rules, well guess what, from the link below you can grab my ground rules
that I use all the time with my clients, these are my tried-and-true ones, and I'm
telling you, they work, so make your life easy, grab them, so you can use them at
your next meeting, please subscribe to my channel, like this video, and share it
with all the professionals that you know, if there's a specific facilitation skill
that you're now going to try, let me know in the comments below, I'd love to
hear from you, until the next video, ah see you later