Guest Post - Bo Wang

Bo is one of Chris' Spring 2012 Professional Speaking students at Carnegie Mellon. Here he writes about meetings.

In the real business world, meeting, as a way that provides face-to-face communication and direct interaction, also poses the question of how to conduct a meeting both efficiently and productively. As the host of a meeting, knowing how to drive the session into this direction requires one to have a thorough understanding of what makes the participants feel good and worthwhile after spending their valuable time sitting with you.

I would use ‘3A’ to represent the three factors that may set a line between a good meeting and a bad one. Namely, they are anticipation, attention and atmosphere. Note that the definition of ‘good’ focuses on the context of the objectives proposed at the beginning of this article. That is, efficiency and productivity. Certainly there are many other criteria to gauge the successfulness of a meeting, but those two are of the most importance and usually determines how people feel about a meeting.

Firstly, anticipation means that the host should make it clear what are the expected results of the meeting. And it should be stated at the beginning so that everyone has a clear clue about why they are there and what they could contribute to the meeting. It would be a lot easier for the host to keep the meeting on the right track if everyone knows where this conversation should go. If you don’t have a clue about what is the anticipation of a meeting? Be prepared to consume several hours there, I would charge my smart phone 100% in advance.

Secondly, how to get a hold of everyone’s attention is the vital skill for a communicator. In order to achieve this, the host can simply remind everyone by articulating “Can I have your attention please?” or raising the voice when there is a tendency that someone is going to fall asleep. Or, in a smarter way, experienced host might cope with this situation by, for example, keeping the opinions concise, being humorous during a certain point, or kindly asking for feedback so that everyone is thinking and all the minds are on the same page.

Thirdly, the overall control of the whole atmosphere examines the host’s ability to communicate in a broader sense. Don’t be nervous as the host, since others in the room are counting on you and observing you so they can decide how they should behave in the session. Setting the tone by starting with some small talks, making others resonate with you by talking about Super bowl, or a newly released movie, etc. A relaxing and properly loosed atmosphere generally correlated with the previously two factors: people could think more carefully about the topic of the meeting and draw more attention when they feel comfortable.

To be a good host in a meeting, it is not just about your understanding of the material, but also relates to easygoing personality, strong logic ability, acute time sensitivity, and how sexy you are. Oh, just kidding about the last one, but who knows? If you are not just take it literally.

By the way, I always love the sexier one.