How To Own Every Meeting

If you leave a meeting that resolved nothing, it's your fault.  If you make sure every meeting ends with a decision for positive, measurable action, you'll stand out from the crowd.  Here's how.

Meetings Suck

If you have a job in an office, I bet you sit through a lot of meetings. Most are useless:  they waste time, resolve nothing, and provide no real direction--except to reconvene a few days later to waste more time.

Organizations seem really to like flushing  money down the toilet with countless, useless meetings.  I won't try to stop that here.  Instead, I'll help you own every meeting.

Owning the Meeting

By owning, I don't mean "be responsible for."  That job sucks--it makes you the one responsible for wasting your employer's money.

By "owning the meeting" I mean standing out, being responsible for whatever good comes from it, and driving the decision.

1.  Shut Up

This is the most difficult challenge, but it's one you must meet if you want to be the own the results of every meeting.  Keep your mouth shut.  Speak as little as possible through the meeting. 

Ask questions, ask for clarifications of what others say, but stop there.  The more you speak in a meeting, the lower the value of anything you say.

2.  Take notes

What do people say?  How passionate are they about what they're saying?  How are others responding to what's being said? 

Very often, meetings convey the company line and middle managers pretend a) that the message is authentically theirs and b) that they are interested in feedback. 

If the speaker seems less than passionate and the listeners seem less than enthusiastic, an intelligent, sincere better idea will win the crowd.

3.  Judge

"Don't judge," has become a mantra of political correctness.  Lack of judgment gave us the financial meltdown.  So consider judging a moral and fiduciary duty.

Bad idea, dispassionate presenters, and unworthy goals must be judged harshly and immediately. 

4.  Strike Late

Having preserved your capital by keeping quiet, honed your thought with careful notes, and made appropriate judgments about the ideas presented, use the last five minutes to win the meeting.

State your desired decision or action as a matter of fact.  Say "Let's go with Brand X."  Don't equivocate with, "I think we should give some thought to . . ." 

Strength wins.

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