We Have to Start Meeting Like This

Since so much influencing takes place at formal or informal meetings (virtual or face-to-face) at work, at home, or in your community, following are some suggestions for designing meetings for effective two-way influencing. If the outcome of the meeting is to be a decision or set of actions that will require the commitment of participants, it's especially important that each person have an opportunity to influence the end result. Too many meetings are designed to avoid engaging people in discussion about decisions that they will have to buy into and implement. This only lengthens the overall process.

1. If you are the person calling the meeting, spend some one-on-one time conferring with other key stakeholders (those who have something to gain or lose by the outcome of the meeting) and get their ideas as to what should be on the agenda, who should be invited, time—or time zone—place, and other details.
2. Send out the agenda or let participants know in advance the topics that will be discussed. That way, those who like to think before they speak out (mainly the introverts among us—whose thoughtful comments may be lost otherwise) will have a chance to prepare to influence others at the meeting. This tends to increase engagement and shorten the meeting, because people will come prepared. In addition, establishing topics in advance can prevent the situation that arises when someone who did not participate actively at the last meeting now wants to re-open the topic for discussion, just when you thought the matter was settled.
3. Ask someone to facilitate the meeting. This is especially important if there will be difficult or controversial topics on the agenda, or if the group typically tends to become bogged down in details or get sidetracked. The person who is facilitating should be someone without a vested interest in the outcome of the issues under discussion. This can be a rotating role in your group, or you can use someone outside the group who has had some training in meeting facilitation. The job of the facilitator is to manage the process of the meeting by agreement with other members of the group. He or she should not contribute to the content without publicly stepping out of his or her facilitator role. See the Resources section for suggestions.
4. State clearly in the agenda, and again at the beginning of the meeting, the purpose of the session and the process you will follow. It's helpful for participants to know what results are expected. Which of the following best describes your purpose?
   • Communicate information.
   • Gather information.
   • Explore problems or issues.
   • Make a decision.
   • Announce a decision and discuss how to implement it.
5. Establish a set of norms or ground rules for this meeting (or to use at all meetings of a particular group) that will ensure that everyone has a fair chance to be heard and to influence the decisions appropriately. Ask participants for suggestions and then be sure to enforce them in a good-natured way. Some examples might be
   • Have a time limit for each person's comments on a particular topic.
   • Ask for someone's ideas if he or she has not spoken for a while.
   • Ask the group for alternatives before settling on a solution.
6. In meetings that are primarily expressive in nature (such as meetings that communicate information or decisions), it's important to set aside time afterward to use receptive skills to gather questions and/or listen to concerns.
7. In meetings that are primarily receptive in nature (such as meetings that are held for the purpose of gathering information or exploring issues), it's important to begin with an expressive statement informing or reminding participants of the purpose and process and why they are being involved. It may also be useful to share a vision of the ideal results of the meeting and encourage participants to be active and open.
8. Overall, meetings should be designed to enable participants to move back and forth between expressing their ideas and learning about what others think. There is little chance of a successful result if everyone is only interested in expressing his or her ideas—or, for that matter, if no one is willing to take the risk of putting an idea on the table. A good facilitator can be very helpful with this.
9. Use different processes during the meeting to involve everyone who has something to contribute. For example, try a “nominal group process” in which each person contributes a thought or idea, one at a time. (There should always be an option to pass and the process should continue for several rounds, allowing new ideas to develop and for participants to be willing to put them forward.)
10. Be sure to separate processes that are meant to generate ideas, such as brainstorming, from processes that are evaluative and meant to move toward decision making. Use ground rules that support the process you are using. (For example, brainstorming processes require a “no evaluation of ideas” ground rule to be successful.)
11. Notice when someone who is key to implementing the group's decision, or whose support is important, is not participating or is giving signals that he or she is not happy with the direction. This may be difficult to ascertain during virtual meetings, so the leader or facilitator should check in with key people from time to time (i.e., “William, what are your thoughts about this?”). Use receptive skills to invite that person to participate and/or to express concerns.
12. For important decisions that require participants' support, consider using a consensus process. Consensus does not mean that everyone believes it is the best possible decision—it means that everyone has agreed that he or she can live with, support, and implement the decision. A consensus decision process involves
    • A proposal for a decision, often a summary of a discussion about the issues involved
    • A question: “Who can't support the decision as stated?”
    • A query to those who are not in agreement: “What would have to change in order for you to be able to live with and implement the decision?”
    • A discussion and good-faith effort to modify the decision to gain the support of those who disagree
    • Another check for agreement

    This process may be repeated several times until a consensus is reached.

13. If your meetings are typified by “groupthink,” where people tend to cluster around similar ideas or come to agreement without challenging one another, ask someone to act as “devil's advocate” for any important decision, questioning assumptions or rationale and asking for alternatives.
14. Consider who, outside of the group, will need to be influenced in order for any meeting decisions to be implemented successfully. Discuss how to approach the influence tasks as next steps in the decision process.

Influencing in Global and Virtual Teams

All of the suggestions above are valid, whether the meeting is held face-to-face or by video, telephone, or web conference. When participants in the meeting are not co-located, special care should be taken to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to participate and influence. From time to time, the facilitator or leader in a virtual meeting should do a “round-robin” check for comments, opinions, or questions from each participant by name (always allowing for a “pass” response).

Virtual meetings that involve global teams have special issues. Time zones could shift from one meeting to another—possible because of who is hosting the meeting, but also to be fair about sharing the difficulty of meeting outside of regular working hours equitably. Seemingly simple issues like this can have an impact on where people believe power resides and can have an effect on a member's perceived ability to influence the team.

When possible, global teams should have an occasional face-to-face meeting, or at least a video meeting so that members have a more personal sense of one another. This, too, increases the likelihood of active influencing across boundaries of time and space.

Cultural differences about influence can have an important impact on global teams. For example, some cultures are more hierarchical than others, causing younger, newer, or less senior members to withhold their ideas—which can be a real loss. Any team leader or manager will do well to learn about these cultural differences that can be barriers to communication and influence so that he or she can find appropriate ways (through team norms, for example) to encourage full participation. Teams and organizations with a healthy climate for influence can be more focused, aligned, and innovative—they can trust the agreements they reach and know that good ideas will be shared.