Introduction

You are just about to take to a platform that gives you the ability to demonstrate your preparation skills, facilitation abilities and, most of all, your personal drive for a positive and effective meeting outcome. This will be illustrated through positive engagement from participants, resulting in clear and well-documented actions that ultimately will benefit your organisation. In Part 1, we detailed how participants can use meetings to advance their career; as the leader of a Brilliant Meeting, you now have a more visible platform to raise your own personal profile.

The success of a meeting depends on everyone present working together to their best ability in order to achieve the desired outcomes. Whilst we clearly advocate that ground rules should be in place to ensure that there are no doubts about what is expected and what is unacceptable, it is the leadership qualities that will make or break the meeting.

A Brilliant Meeting needs a brilliant leader.

There are many different reasons why meetings are held; some will be short and completely focused on a single business outcome, whilst others will have the luxury of time and informality to delve further into the human aspects underpinning the meeting. Some will be a regular gathering of participants well known to each other in familiar surroundings; others will bring together new participants in new surroundings. The former may require virtually nothing in the way of introductions and housekeeping before getting down to the business of the day, the latter will require a very different start to the meeting.

In Part Three many ideas and suggestions have been put forward for use in the meetings that you are leading. But use these with care, as not all of the tools will be appropriate for every type of meeting.

‘The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.’

Theodore Roosevelt