Improve your meetings

The overriding goal is to distill ideas from everyone and create the best course of action from the collective consciousness.

Meeting Bingo: A fun way to avoid boring meetings.

Any person getting bingo in any direction may leave the meeting immediately. Just print the sheets you need, cut them into quarters, and you are ready to go. Click here.

Here is what Jerry needs to help you.

First of all, a clear meeting focus. This is usually the result of Jerry's contacts with the decision maker and group members before the meeting. During those contacts he will ask for permission to interrupt anyone during the meeting - including the top person.

Then during the meeting, Jerry's key responsibilities are to ...

1. Observe - watch carefully for subtle communication clues that might need to be highlighted.  
    
2. Question - ask hard questions of the group and if necessary ask specific questions of someone who has not been actively participating. 
    
3. Interrupt - this means stopping anyone who is talking too much, who is not allowing others to participate fully, or who is trying to push a personal agenda that is not helpful to the group. 
    
4. Keep the group on task - at times meetings tend to meander; Jerry keeps the focus on the meeting goal and agenda. If it becomes clear during the meeting that the group needs to re-focus or even change its goal, he will help them move to a higher priority.  

NOTE: Everyone is not going to agree on every decision all the time and some decisions are not group decisions.