Effective Meetings
Raise the Bar on Meeting Participation – The Art of Visuals
No one remembers what went on in your meeting. No one knows what to do. People look blank when you ask them a question in your meeting. People repeat themselves over and over in the same meeting or from meeting to meeting. People are literally falling asleep in the meeting. These may be signs that…
Sweat the Small Stuff
Think Like an Astronaut…Oops, Like a Facilitator (Part 2) In our second video series, learn how thinking like an astronaut can help you prepare and execute a facilitation “mission”. This video provides specific, on-the-job tips. 4. Sweat the Small Stuff – Everything Counts. In contrast to the famous book, “Don’t sweat the small stuff”, our…
Creating Group Guidelines for Terrific Teamwork
Getting teamwork off to a solid start is critical to the success of the project and to the team. Here are some tips for how to set customized team guidelines (also known as ground rules) as well as offer them typical guidelines from which they could pick and choose. Both activities take from 15 to…
Wake Them Up! Raising Energy in Meetings
Low energy, boring, waste of time. What do these 3 words conjure up for you? Likely most of you answered – meetings! What if we could get all of our meetings off to a positive, high-energy, anything but boring start? Today, we’ll focus on the benefits of perking your group up right from the start…
This is Why You Shouldn’t Give Up on Virtual Meetings
So here’s what happened… I had what felt like a major failure with my free webinar last week. We had practiced everything. All the layouts were perfect – well not exactly perfect but good enough. But the technology surprised us to say the least. Close to the beginning, we were in the middle of conducting…
“Please Do Not Ask Me to Be Creative!”
Participants will often express this sentiment, “Please do not ask me to do anything “touchy, feely”, creative, or silly (these are often all lumped together as similar by your participants) . Thus, when we as facilitators suggest something creative, we are often met with resistance, sighs, and “deer in the headlights” (i.e., scared) looks. Interestingly,…
Pack Your Bag – 6 Props for Awesome Meetings
In this video and written blog, I’m going to actually share what I do to get ready for a meeting and take you into my dining room to open up my workshop suitcase. Enjoy the video or just read below to get more ideas. Every time I get ready for facilitating meetings, I notice nervousness…
11 Must Do’s For Better Meetings
This week and last week I have been delivering a customized version of our Meetings That Rock in webinar format to a group of managers in Alaska who are motivated to improve the way their meetings are conducted. One of the handouts we provide them is on the 11 steps of participatory meetings. I thought…
When Things Heat Up – What Expert Larry Dressler Does
Over the last year we have featured a number of facilitators asking them the same questions. This month we have the wonderful treat from hearing from a well known facilitator and author, Larry Dressler. Larry wrote “Standing In The Fire” and has just had his book translated into Japanese! I met Larry for the first…
Stop Wasting Everything You’ve Learned About Facilitation
I pulled a book off my shelf today by Susan Jeffers, “Embracing Uncertainty: Breakthrough Methods for Achieving Peace of Mind When Facing the Unknown”. The title is totally relevant to what I call facilitation design. (Ms. Jeffers also wrote “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway”). In this blog, I’m going to talk about a model…
