Personal Efficiency and Managing Meetings Training Course

Understanding Ourselves and Others

• Recognising that requesting attendance at a meeting imposes our specific priorities on others
• Examining the drivers behind our behavioural patterns
• Assessing our impact on others: Do they consistently respond as desired or expected? If not, what are the underlying reasons…?

The Process for Managing Meetings

• Evaluating the necessity of a meeting, exploring alternatives, and determining if any are preferable
• Implementing best practices for convening, facilitating, and preparing for meetings:
  • Developing a meaningful agenda that defines objectives, topics, and suggested timings
  • Inviting only essential participants – and no one else
  • Facilitating the meeting: ensuring contributions are relevant (distinguishing between relevant and irrelevant); adhering to the agenda; maintaining the schedule
  • Producing outcomes: creating at least action points, rather than necessarily detailed minutes
  • Scheduling follow-up sessions

Attending Meetings

• Questioning the necessity of attending every meeting to which one is invited
• Establishing criteria for deciding whether to participate
• Identifying valid grounds for declining invitations
• Understanding permissible actions during a meeting regarding attendees, discussion topics, and time management

Other Personal Efficiency and Time Management Issues

• Setting and maintaining personal and professional objectives
• Work Prioritisation
  • Determining essential tasks
  • Ranking activities by importance
• Employee-Imposed Time: Assessing the dynamic between staff/colleagues and myself – who is working for whom…?
• Time Bandits: Identifying other time drains and mitigation strategies
  • Electronic mail
  • Telephone calls
  • Unplanned interruptions
  • Displacement activities, such as procrastination…
  • Additional factors…
• Effective Delegation
• Assertiveness: Seeking compromise and learning to decline requests effectively