Today’s 1pm Meeting: Make It Work
Zoning out should not be an option.
Cut the web. Don’t zone out.
Not every meeting is a useless waste of time. Some of my must-read copywriting bloggers have written about meetings they attended ranging from useless to suicide-inducing.
But I recently sat with a client to hash out what was going right with their messaging to a particular audience. They had seen a spate of cutting-through-the-clutter moments with a particular set of customers and the wins were tumbling in.
People from different roles in the organization pulled up to the big conference table. Each spoke to the success with this audience from the vantage point their position afforded. I was there to hear and gather and (ultimately) tighten and sharpen the message. The message—and the story around the message—would fuel a set of communication vehicles and events.
The meeting was entirely successful, at least for me, because I could question and challenge as the discussion unwound. And my pages of notes have served to bring back quotes and directions. Just connecting the dots on my notes has been productive.
All this to say it is up to us to make a meeting work. That means cutting through the rhetorical web spun by the power-seekers. Sometimes we need to call “bull” on people. And sometimes we need to play catalyst and lob a softball question to pull forward the silent person’s thoughts.
Zoning out should not be an option.
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Image Credit: via Frank T. Zumbachs Mysterious World
conversation is an engine 
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