Wednesday 18 September 2013

Young Professionals Meetings And Relationships

By Dom Richards


It is tricky to run a meeting without experience, and it will change throughout your career. Why do you need to call a meeting. In order to resolve a problem or issue. Why do you need to sort something out. To gain insight into the thoughts of others and allow them to help you progress.

Duration of the meeting depends on your agenda, depends on how well you know the people and the materials you have to discuss. Getting the right people in the room is of utmost importance, without the right mix of responsibility and input the meeting will be a failure.

Presentation slides are important for the meeting but ensure you have the facilities available. If anyone needs to bring something along ensure you give them plenty of notice for it to be a success. Create an action list / agenda items / accountability for the key issues to be discussed.

Quite often the discussion in meetings will become heated and people will have different views. The parking lot is a great tool for these sorts of issues. Always remain neutral and calm. Agenda: Context - Reasons for having a meeting, and the issues you have. Stakeholders - Ensure the correct people are involved and feel empowered. Your position - Discuss your ideas for the path forward. Action items - Keeping track of what is required and by when and whom and the context. Close out - Let everyone know that you appreciate their time.

When presenting to management its always a daunting task and you need to understand what it is that they find useful to see and hear. Congratulations that you have the opportunity to present to management, its not something that everyone gets a chance to do. What does management want. To understand the work in progress and ensure its in line with their vision for the future. They also want to reward good performance and it is a credit to you that you are an 'adviser' to the management team. What do you want from management. This is obviously different for each individual but in general we want recognition, money or power. This is a harsh way of framing it however when we break down motivation it is quite simple.

Organisational behaviour is the study of why people do the things they do, how and its effects upon business efficiency. Trust and respect are key elements of organisational behaviour as they can shape outcomes and give those in pivotal positions the support they require to excel and exceed expectations.

Tips and tricks for presentations

It is often handy to start with time lines, the time line shows where you started, where you are now and what you have to go. You can then explain deviations from plan as you go, current status and future work.

Always finish with a positive and keep the important details as items to focus on in conclusion.

The flow of the presentation should include the challenges early on and then focus on the positive fixes and conclusions. If you focus on the negative then so will the audience and this will leave a negative impression.

Pictures, management love pictures, the reason pictures or graphs are so great for presentations is that they provide a simple message and provide context.

END GOAL - Leave the managers with 3 main clear points, no more than this or its confusing. No more that 5 dot points on each slide.

We all want to do a good job. Relationships at work are pivotal, show your worth!




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