Meetings Articles

Article Overview:
This is an excellent article from Jane Honeybourne, which explains what Action Learning is, and how it can benefit individuals and organisations.
The article includes advice about what questions to use during the process, and how to review an Action Learning Set's effectiveness.

Opening Words:
Action Learning (AL) is a powerful performance improvement/management technique. In this article, I've explained what AL is and how it works, and given advice about the types of questions to use in an AL set. Towards the end of the article you'll find some ideas for introducing AL and reviewing its effectiveness.

Useful Reading For:
Anyone who wants to know more about the Action Learning process and how it can help individuals and organisations tackle important work-related problems.

Article Overview:
In this article Jeremy explains how we can all develop our negotiation skills. The article covers several areas, including cultural expectations and challenges, myths about negotiating and the negotiator's dilemma.

Opening Words:
We all have to negotiate at one level or another, whatever our job. Often, there can be huge sums at stake. Yet, many managers, responsible for negotiating even quite critical issues, whether for contracts of supply, purchases or employment, let alone day-to-day differences of opinion with colleagues, have never been trained to negotiate professionally.

The requisite skills are often held to be 'self-evident'. But they are not!

Useful Reading For:
Anyone wanting to develop their negotiation skills.

Article Overview:
This short article from experienced life coach Fiona Reed provides some useful advice and tips for influencing managers. It explains the preparation that will help you sell an idea to your manager.

Opening Words:
If you want to influence your boss or someone who has authority to affect your actions, a good way is to have a well thought out plan. Sometimes it is said, 'well, just ask for what you want', (which is easy to say although maybe hard to do), but will that get the result you seek?

A better question to ask yourself is, ‘What can I do to ask in a way that is likely to get a 'yes'?’ This is something altogether trickier. It involves work to prepare, but is far more likely to deliver the goods and get the ‘yes’ you want. It involves a plan to go 'upwards' with solutions and not problems. This is key. People who have any kind of power to agree to something you want or not, will have their minds racing with 'yes, buts' all the time you’re speaking, because they will be involved in the decisions, the cost and disruption caused by the solution you’re proposing. So the clearer you can be and the more thorough your prior thinking, the more likely you are to be able to quell those racing thoughts before they’ve taken hold.

Useful Reading For:
Anyone who needs to influence decision makers to ensure a positive outcome is reached - that's everyone at some time or another!

Article Overview:
This superb article from Calum Coburn is essential reading for anyone involved in negotiation or sales. It explains some of the common tactics used in negotiation by those focused on short term benefit, and gives clear advice for neutralising these without resorting to the same manipulative approaches.

Opening Words:
Prior to the 1980’s, many companies focused their negotiation training on tactics. Although the following tactics will yield a short term result, we don’t advocate their use in a business context. The reason we don’t advocate their use is due to both the long term damage they will deliver to your business relationships, and the questionable ethics of using manipulative tactics. Once you have mastered the Principled Negotiation Model, the need for manoeuvring to gain a small short term advantage will be made redundant. These tactics are designed to extract value out of the other side without making any value contribution or creation. They are thus Win-Lose by nature.

Useful Reading For:
Anyone involved in negotiations or sales.

Article Overview:
In this article, Martin Shovel considers why "PowerPoint Presentations that Changed the World" ranks so highly on the list of books that will never be written.

Opening Words:
Why does PowerPoint Presentations that Changed the World rank so high on the list of books that will never be written? Perhaps the clue is in the title. PowerPoint has been with us for over 20 years but during that time it has gained more of a reputation for sending the world to sleep than changing it.

Great orators, past and present, have managed to weave their magic with words alone. Would Nelson Mandela’s statement at the opening of his trial have been more powerful, or Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech more moving if they’d been delivered as PowerPoint presentations?

Useful Reading For:
All trainers and coaches who use Powerpoint.

Article Overview:
In this excellent article, Sheila Williams looks at the challenges of coaching a team using her own experiences. The article includes a helpful list of questions to ask before undertaking team coaching.

Opening Words:
How many teams do you belong to at work – three, four, five? Research from Clutterbuck Associates suggests we may be members of as many as six or more different teams at any one time. When team members have clarity about their roles and contributions, team performance in key results areas is measurably improved - creating a positive impact in the organisation as a whole, in terms of service quality, organisational performance, motivation and morale.

Team coaching can be particularly challenging, whether the coach is the team leader or an external coach. It is a complex activity involving the facilitation of 1:1 and team interactions, observing and giving feedback on team processes and behaviours, and dealing with tensions and conflict which are often hidden beneath the surface.

Useful Reading For:
Trainers and line managers.

Article Overview:
This is a really useful article from Brian Hunt, which includes tools for assessing meetings and making future meetings more effective.

Opening Words:
Do you think that most meetings are badly run and a waste of time? If so, your views are supported by the findings of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. According to the research they carried out:
• The average meeting takes place in the company conference room at 11am and lasts for 90 minutes.
• It is attended by nine people - two managers, four co-workers, two subordinates and one outsider - who have received two hour prior notification.

Useful Reading For:
Anyone who attends or organises meetings - that's all of us then!