You’ve got a meeting coming up which you know is important for the success of your project and could also be a turning point for your career. You want to prepare properly as you know the 5 P’s Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance.
But what should you think about? Here are some tips to ensure that you are prepared for everything and all you need to do is shine.
1. Do your homework
Know who is attending, what their role is and ensure that you receive agenda in advance. Make sure your slot is allocated enough time.
2. Understand the politics
Consider the relationships between those in the meeting and their personal agenda. How might that affect the meeting and their reactions? What might you need to do or say to keep things on track. If you are not sure about this, who could you ask?
3. Start before the meeting
If you have an important idea or case that you want to be agreed at the meeting, start influencing in advance, sharing papers, have one to one meetings and demonstrating your passion on advance. This way you know who is on your side and any objections so that you can be prepared for them.
4. Practice what you have to say
Practice how you will articulate your important points, making sure that you look at it from multiple perspectives. Take bullet points rather than a long form script in with you. Make sure you leave time for questions within your allotted time.
5. Ask powerful open questions
Good questions are based on what you hear within the meeting. But keeping the questions open and positive helps, here are some suggestions to get you started:
- How can I help to make this happen?
- What can we learn from this?
- What role would you like me to take in this?
- What would success look like?
- What further information do we need?
- What’s our best hope for this project/initiative?
- What can we build on?
- What’s working?
- Where do you see me inputting most effectively?
Don’t forget to come back and share your success with me.
I am Jenny Garrett, Executive Coach, founder of Reflexion Associates, a leadership and coaching consultancy and author or Rocking Your Role – the how to guide to success for female breadwinners. Find out more about me, my programmes, speaking engagements and training at rockingyourrole.com and sign up for my newsletter