Strengthen Your Meeting Agendas!

Excerpted from “Chapter 22” of “Now That’s A Great Question.”

How many meeting agendas have you read where the leader listed topics but gave you no clue as to what outcome he/she wanted?

Or how many times have you discovered—during your meeting—that the leader had no intended outcomes for the agenda items?

And on top of all of that, how many times have you discovered that the leader in question…is YOU?   Take for example:

Executive Team Meeting Agenda:

1. Sales

2. Budget

3. Customer Service

4. Leveraging Strengths

5. National Conference

When you read though the above agenda, do you have any idea what outcome the leader is wanting from the discussion of each item? You could, of course, guess, but how often do you think your guess would be correct?

So how can you strengthen your agenda? It really is quite simple: turn your agenda items into questions!

The leader simply asks: What outcome am I wanting from the discussion of each agenda item? How can I turn that outcome into an easy-to-understand question?

If an outcome cannot be identified, then there is no need to include that item in your agenda.

1. What are our top 20% sales force members doing that the rest of our sales force is not?

2. Are your expenses over, under, or on track with your budget?

3. How can we turn customer complaints into satisfied customer endorsements?

4. How are you leveraging the unique strengths of each of your team members to accomplish your Strategic Plan?

5. What can we do to increase attendance at our National Conference?

When you read through the revised meeting agenda can you now clearly understand what outcome the leader is wanting from the discussion of each item? Not exactly rocket science is it?

You have just read the “Chapter 22” from “Now That’s a Great Question.”  You can request your free download of the entire book to read the other 29 Chapters by clicking “HERE!”