Management Training – Page 48 – STL

Company Profile

Delegates on the Conducting Successful Meetings Course run by STL mainly hold key stakeholder positions, in addition to management, team leadership and director-level posts.

They came from a variety of different industries including accounting, banking, pharma, a sporting goods manufacturer and tech.

STLs London course on conducting meetings — Conducting successful meetings

Business Requirement

Many of the companies that sent delegates on ‘Conducting Meetings’ wanted their staff to get better at planning, delivering and following up on action points during meetings in order to make them more effective.

They were hoping that staff would gain a grounding in the core concepts of Conducting Meetings and gain awareness of the impact of external and internal factors in an organisation upon individual and team decision-making when it comes to making meetings more productive.

Some of the challenges identified:

HR departments booking delegates on this course had identified the following challenges:

Many lacked the courage, conviction and confidence to successfully plan, lead and follow up on a meeting agenda
They needed a workable model and clear strategies that they could take away and use in the business to help meetings run more efficiently
Developing their ability to notice and practice higher-level communication and presentation skills was acknowledged as a significant factor in decreased meeting productivity.

Solution

STL worked collaboratively with all stakeholders to come up with this iteration of Conducting Meetings, which is being regularly updated as new material and trends impact the global business landscape.

The training solutions delivered served the following key areas, namely that they had to;

be of high impact.
have a practical bias rather than theoretical.
serve the business needs of the company.
be of direct benefit to those using the tools and techniques demonstrated.

Some of the topics covered included:

Basics: The purpose of the meeting, mutual objectives, priorities of attendees and how to build rapport from the beginning
Communication: Verbal and non-verbal, how others see us, body language, what we say, how we say it and listening skills
Strategies: Planning ahead, saying Yes and No, giving and receiving feedback, dealing with manipulation and disagreements
Putting It All Together: Making choices, taking control and practical feedback

To facilitate this process, we provided a number of handouts, engaged in role plays, dug into relevant case studies and used delegates examples to bring the course material alive. Everyone left with a manual and a clear action and implementation plan for their return to work post-course.

Benefits

The outcomes achieved by delivering the strategic decision-making course included:

Maximising results from business meetings, including rapport building, feedback, dealing with manipulation and disagreements and forward planning
An increase in confidence as a result of learning about powerful communication strategies
The benefits of cross-collaboration and understanding how clear objective setting can substantially increase productivity.

Delegates comments:

“Extremely helpful course. Well-paced, never felt bored. No topic felt redundant. Andrew was extremely friendly and engaging. Good level of interaction between presenter and us. I definitely feel more confident after today. Would recommend it to anyone.”

“Good course presented by a very knowledgeable trainer. I found all the content very practical and beneficial.”

Trainer’s comment:

This was an interesting and stimulating course to deliver. There was a lot of lively discussion around communication in general and how to overcome the delegates’ specific challenges.

These included role plays, techniques and practical strategies to help delegates make the most of meetings. It was very gratifying to see light-bulb moments happening throughout as delegates assimilated the material and applied it to their workplace examples ready to action after the course.

When our teams and departments need to make efficient decisions, it can be challenging. Decision-making is compounded by complexity, political interests and conflicting personalities.

With more at stake, productivity can slow down and consensus can seem a long way off. Positions harden, alliances form and people compete as discussions move in opposite directions.

Below are four essential strategies that STL has seen significantly improve decision-making within our own teams and delegate groups.

Select Relevant Criteria for Decision-Making

Decision criteria are the variables identified as vital to the team, department or organisation making the decision. Variables enable the people involved in the decision-making process to efficiently evaluate the alternatives. For example, if all of the vendors under consideration for a new outsourcing project offer the same basic service, then it makes sense to eliminate that criteria. Since there is no variation, we are not helped in our decision making.

Besides that, having measurable and relevant criteria helps a team to compare one option with another. For example, “reliable” product quality is only a useful criteria if it is qualified with measurable data such as, “zero product returns” or “98% of customers are satisfied with reliability of this product”.

more productive decision making — 4 strategies for better decision making

List Pros and Cons

When discussions diverge and different groups favour particular ideas, a useful strategy for reaching a decision is visualising the pros and cons. It means that people can see the alternatives and consider different perspectives.

If clear options do not emerge, the decision-making team can score each idea. For example, +10 might indicate strong approval while -2 shows mild disapproval. When each option has been evaluated and scored, an overall positive score means your team can move forward with a proposal, while a negative one might suggest it should be modified, shelved or discarded altogether.

Clarify Assumptions

It’s crucial to identify any assumptions that may be guiding the team’s thinking. Some assumptions surface immediately. However, depending on the complexity of the issue, blind sports will likely exist. In order to pinpoint them, we need to seek unbiased help from people outside the team who can probe for any unspoken assumptions.

Unspoken assumptions can undermine many of the important decisions we make. Examples include: key talent will be engaged and on-hand; assumptions relating to customer needs or perceptions; market prices stay the same or competitors don’t have a product of their own in the pipeline.

Most importantly, once we know what our assumptions are, we can analyse each one for better informed decision-making.

Breakout with Buzz-groups

When a larger decision-making group hits a wall, it’s time to mobilise a subgroup to come up with fresh ideas. They can then return and discuss their ideas with the whole group.

Conclusion

Arriving at well informed decisions can be difficult. Deciding on your criteria to compare options, making a visual list of pros and cons for different options, being clear about your assumptions, and establishing subgroups to overcome barriers to the process can all help your teams to successfully reach an agreement.

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