Insights from Meeting that get result by Brian Tracy

In the prologue, there was a case study of a lady called Lisa that had addiction to alcohol and cigarettes but became a strong influence in helping people overcome such addictions and some scientists wanted to understand how she was able to do it and she narrated her story. The main thing that was concluded is that Lisa overcame addiction by focusing on changing one single habit and this extended to all other areas of her life, mind you this was someone who had everything going the wrong way for her. It was unbelievable what she had achieved in just 11 months. So focusing on one pattern called 'keystone habit' can bring tremendous change in so many areas of someone's life. All our lives are a mass of habits, and research showed that around 40% of actions that an individual takes per day are habits, not actual decisions.

I started off with chapter 8 which speaks about the decision making model for meetings and this is that a consensus must be reached by all participants and that I as a leader must avoid taking decisions without a consensus in a meeting as this would lead to a withdrawal of support from those who don't agree with the decision.

This chapter introduced various levels in the process of developing consensus. This includes
1.⁠ ⁠Encouraging openess by making sure everyone in the meeting shares their own opinion. A previous chapter shared how to encourage openness.
2.⁠ ⁠By listening patiently to everyone, it's fine if people have divergent opinions. I should allow them to slug it out at the meeting.
3.⁠ ⁠By arriving at a clear decision, this usually takes time, but with openess and being patient, the meeting will arrive here at some point after all sides have shared what they can.
4.⁠ ⁠Getting full commitment, this is a by-product of a clear decision. Everyone must agree that even though the design didn't go my way, I am fully committed to making sure this works.
5.⁠ ⁠Making the final decision. There's always a moment of final decision in a meeting, and I must take responsibility for that and communicate in clear terms to everyone at the meeting of my final decision on the issues discussed.

Chapter 9 talks about problems in meetings. This chapter shares some of the problems I may encounter when I am presiding over a meeting. These problems include groupthink, let's all get along, louder and faster, and politics in decision making.

Chapter 10 speaks  about the reasons for ineffective meetings,  and one major reason is vague goals. When people are not sure of why the meeting is being held, then they are likely not to prepare properly for such a meeting.

Another reason that can bring about ineffective meetings is poor meeting leadership, and examples include
1.⁠ ⁠Starting the meeting late
2.⁠ ⁠Losing control of the meeting
3.⁠ ⁠Dominating the discussion
4.⁠ ⁠Faling to reach a conclusion

Another reason is group participation. This happens when only a few people are making contributions during a meeting.

Another thing to avoid so that meeting can be effective is lack of follow-up. People must be assigned to various tasks agreed at the meeting.

Lastly, make sure you check the venue of the meeting way ahead of the meeting.

Chapter 12

This talks about delegating in a meeting and how important it is to achieving results after a meeting.
Effective delegation can free up more time for me as a manager to do more productive work
Below is how to delegate
1.⁠ ⁠Think through the job and what needs to be done
2.⁠ ⁠Choose the right person for the job. Make sure its a round peg in a round hole
3.⁠ ⁠Explain what needs to be done clearly
4.⁠ ⁠Ask for feedbacks to make sure the right person understands what is needed to be done
5.⁠ ⁠Set a deadline and schedule of milestones to measure what is done and the progress of work.
6.⁠ ⁠Express confidence in the right person chosen to do the work.

Chapter 13

This talks about meetings that would happen outside my office. To make these meetings effective I must do the following;
1.⁠ ⁠I should get clarity in advance. I must understand the purpose of the meeting before going for it.
2.⁠ ⁠On getting to the meeting venue, I should restate the purpose of the meeting I got earlier.
3.⁠ ⁠I should define the perfect outcome by engaging my host and asking them what results they are looking at getting from the meeting.
4.⁠ ⁠I should pay attention to the meeting environment and make sure I'm in an optimal space.
5.⁠ ⁠I should emphasise the duration of the meeting as this will help us to stay on the important issues.
6.⁠ ⁠I should press for closure and collective decision.
7.⁠ ⁠I must take important notes.

Chapter 14

This talks about organising meeting facilities when I have called for a meeting. Making sure that meeting facility is planned for goes a long way to help the results I'm going to get from the meeting. The following things are what I need to do

1.⁠ ⁠I should over prepare by doing all that is needed to make me knowledgeable on all I want to talk about in the meeting.
2.⁠ ⁠I should never assume about the meeting environment, I should double check to make sure things are in order.
3.⁠ ⁠I should start with the room by preparing things like seating arrangements or even making sure the meeting venue is available and not in use.
4.⁠ ⁠I should check the facility myself to make sure all is working.
5.⁠ ⁠I should make sure the air conditioning of the room is working properly.
6.⁠ ⁠Also I should consider looking at be layout of the meeting and try as much as possible to cut off outside interruptions

‍

Chapter 15 talks about how to organise meetings externally and the things that should be put in a place so as to have a good meeting. Some of them include;

1.⁠ ⁠Studying the contract of the place you want to use and read every line on it carefully. You can also make demands that can alter the contract by making sure that the things that would make your meeting a good one are top priority.

2.⁠ ⁠You should inspect the room personally, you should walk in the room before making commitment to rent it for your meeting.

3.⁠ ⁠The big 3 things that can go wrong in a meeting are sound, light and air conditioning. So you must make sure to check this things properly and state how you want them in the Venue with the provider of the venue.

‍

Chapter 18 talks about developing self confidence in meetings and this highlights the fact that speaking can be terrifying and in order to overcome this terrifying experience you must do what you fear "which is to speak" and you can also join any training about public speaking. You can also read books and take audio courses on public speaking.

Lastly, you must learn to speak up at meetings as this creates an impression about you and can impact your presence at such meetings. If you speak up by asking questions or making contributions at a meeting, it helps to make attendees feel you are needed at such meetings. This means that meetings will expland to fill the time alloted to them. So we must make sure to have a start time and end time to a meeting, stick to it so that we don't drag the meeting longer. Also it's advisable to break the Parkinson law by allotting every item on the agenda to a specific time frame as this will help to keep the meeting staying on track and people will go straight to the point.
We need to allocate our time to meeting, make it an odd one. For instance, one can say I only have 7 minutes for this and this will enable anyone we want to meet to go straight to the point.
Setting deadlines also help us to see that we complete tasks as at when due. We should set deadlines for our meetings and this will help us conclude it in time.

Chapter 19 talks about Parkinson law of meetings. Parkinson law says that "Work will expand to fill the time available for its completion" meaning that any amount of time you allocate to most things is the time it would take to get them completed and same applies to meetings.

Chapter 20 Tips for personal meeting effectiveness
One of the major things you must do before a meeting is to set an agenda and communicate it to everyone attending such a meeting.
There should also be clarity of purpose for the meeting. People should know the specific reason why the meeting was called.
If you can, hand out background information to those attending the meeting in advance, this will help them prepare well in advance before the meeting.

Making visual presentation will also help attendees to absorb and comprehend the information shared. So visual presentation adds a lot to the success of a meeting
Lastly, every meeting must end with a clear statement of what is to be done or next line of actions and who should do what and commitment of the follow up to the actions.

Chapter 21
Meeting as management in action, a good meeting etiquette would be to have planned in advance and to make sure there are no surprises at the meeting, people attending are well aware of all that would be discussed at the meeting. Making sure the meeting starts and stops on time is another very important meeting etiquette.

Secondly, we must make sure the meeting stays on track and when people bring up issues we must find a way to ask them that such issues can be discussed at another time.

Conclusion
Meeting is one of the most important activities in business life and through it you can solve problems, make decisions, influence and persuade people and control the flow of events.

‍