February 10, 2011

Making Work "Work": Resources for Busy Professionals

What if you held a meeting and no one said a word?

If you want to hold a productive meeting, you need all of your colleagues to be actively involved. If no one talks, you might as well issue a memo—but you won’t have the benefit of your team’s insight and experience. Check out the following tactics for generating a substantive discussion:

• Become an active listener. Give nonverbal encouragement to speakers while they're talking—nod, lean forward, raise your eyebrows, etc. Restate what people say to confirm you’ve understood their points. Acknowledge employees’ enthusiasm and concerns.
• Ask effective questions. Open-ended questions, which cannot be answered with a “yes” or a “no,” promote the exchange of ideas. On the other hand, when you want specific information or you want to move the group to action or agreement, ask closed-ended questions. Accept all answers and let your people determine their value.
• Direct the conversation. Call on specific employees by name if necessary, but try not to embarrass anyone. Discourage interruptions when employees are speaking. Keep the discussion on track and rein in speakers who veer off into irrelevant subjects or employees won’t know what you want from them.