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Place Matters
Location's Effect
on Productivity
by Barbara Joyce Frank, Ph.D.
Published in Reston
Chamber of Commerce Business Update,
July
26, 2000
pp. 5, 6.
"Where should we hold the
meeting?" is a question often asked and frequently answered with
the
easiest logistical solution: the same old conference room down the hall
or at the same old hotel. Under these conditions, it is no wonder
participants show up with the same old attitude.
Although it is not intentional, the subliminal message
is that it is
just another meeting, i.e., business as usual.
The same old conference
room may even trigger
memories of past unsuccessful meetings, hardly the
right setting for positive new and creative thinking. Participants often sensing that another meeting may
place new demands on their
already
hectic schedules, approach meetings held in the same old locations with
less than an enthusiastic attitude.
When a meeting is critical for the success of the team
or organization,
taking into account where the meeting
is held is an extremely important
factor. Indeed,
location is an often-neglected strategic variable
that
needs to be given higher priority. Place matters.
If it is essential
that participants focus on a particular
matter, than it is necessary to
have the meeting off-site, where office diversions and conflicting job
demands
are removed. Even hotels have their distractions,
especially
when other groups with different agendas
are sharing common space. Every
effort should be
made to minimize interruptions to guarantee privacy
for
your group. Ideally the meeting site should have
the right ambiance, a
comfortable and yet stimulating environment, which will aid rather than
hinder the
creative thinking process of the meeting participants.
Participants deserve to be pampered when they are
being asked to make a
greater effort or change the way
they have been doing things. Therefore,
their needs
should be taken into account in selecting a site with
the
emphasis on minimum hassle in terms of travel
time, parking and dining.
Taking care of these
basic concerns for your participants will free them
up
to deal with the issue at hand. If it is within the budget, catering
the event has the effect that participants
feel appreciated and become
more cooperative.
In addition, valuable time is saved rather than lost at
a critical time
of the day. If people have trouble getting
to or from their lunch
location, they are often less
agreeable to tackle the important closure
process of the afternoon. Keeping the participants on-site and
taking
care of their dining needs, often allows
for the possibility of further
dialogue through the
lunch hour and creates a willingness to see the
process through conclusion in the afternoon.
One needs to think strategically about meetings as they
are at the core
of the success of the organization.
Choosing the right location is a
critical factor to
ensure a successful productive meeting and must
be
given full consideration when planning the meeting.
~~<< >>~~
Dr. Barbara Frank
is an experienced meeting facilitator
and creator of Meeting Oasis a firm specializing in
meetings and retreats in metropolitan
Washington.
~~<< >>~~
Published in
Reston
Chamber of Commerce Business Update, Vol. 4, No.7,
July 26, 2000
pp. 5,6.
~~<< >>~~
Dr. Frank
and her associates are available to facilitate meetings at Meeting Oasis
sites as well as at other
locations in metropolitan Washington, D.C.
Specializing in the following
areas:
NaturTech
Team-building (including Myers-Briggs™ personality profiling)
Strategic planning
Vision and mission definition
Goal setting
Communications
Please call 703.759.0038 for a free quote.
Successful
Meetings
Don't Just Happen
by Dr. Barbara Joyce Frank
Published as
"Facilitators:
A meeting facilitator explains how her job
is crucial to the meeting
process" in
The Complete Event and
Meeting Planner, Fall/Winter 2000/2001.
The
sales team is not performing well; communications between different
departments is far from optimal;
a major change at the senior management
level calls
for adjustments in mid-management-all good reasons
to call a
meeting.
People are gathered and sequestered for a day.
Logistical arrangements
for the meeting room, food
and audiovisual equipment are handled
flawlessly by planners. Yet, instead of getting the results so
urgently
needed, the meeting becomes a griping session
and people leave
disgruntled. The meeting is perceived
by all to be a waste of time,
money and effort.
What went wrong and what can be done
so that future meetings are
productive events?
Meeting facilitators believe the answer lies in
strategically designing
the
meeting and facilitating the
process throughout the planning,
implementation,
evaluation and follow-up stages. Facilitators are
professional organizational consultants who specialize
in meeting
process and differ from planners
who
concentrate on the logistics of a
meeting.
The pre-meeting stage
In the pre-meeting stage, meeting facilitators work
with their client on
the
purpose and goals of the meeting. Meeting participants need to be
very clear as to why
they are being assembled and what is expected of
them
by the end of the meeting. If this is not the case, then attendees
often use the opportunity to vent their
frustrations about work in
general.
When the specific purpose and goals of the
meeting
are unclear, valuable
time will be spent at the meeting
trying
to determine in a group exactly why
the meeting
is being held. Needless
to say, this does not reflect well
on
the person who called the meeting.
Once the purpose and goals
for the meeting are well articulated, then attention is
directed to
selection of the participants. The list of invitees needs to be based on
the
purpose and goals of the meeting.
For example, if the purpose of the meeting is to
get buy-in from all
departments in a particular
division, then representatives of sufficient
authority
from all departments of the division need to
be at the meeting; if a
project is being planned and will require
funding then the person
holding
the purse strings needs to be present, etc.
Once the list of
participants has been carefully
chosen, the meeting facilitator may need
to talk to participants before the meeting to assure that they
are on
board with respect to the purpose and goals
of this particular meeting.
Participants will be
discouraged from bringing up matters not relevant
to this meeting. In this way, the meeting will start
on a clear positive
note and the chances that the
meeting will be derailed are minimized.
The next critical
aspect of the meeting is the agenda.
An appropriate agenda will be designed to achieve the
desired results by
the end of the meeting. A mistake
made in many meetings is that too much
time is spent
on "old business" leaving "new business" to the later
part
of the day when participants are focused on
going home. Standard format
used for meetings has
been for people to sit around the table with the
person
in charge going through each agenda item. This tends
to be boring
and a poor utilization of the creative
energies of the participants.
A more dynamic agenda is one
whereby much of the
work is done in small interactive groups. These
groups will be given specific topics to work on
related to the goals of
the meeting. The small groups
will report their ideas back to the whole
group and
then the larger group will work together to achieve the
desired results. This methodology minimizes the
tendency for
individuals
to champion their own
ideas and builds instead a group dynamic and
hopefully a group buy-in at the end.
Often the client feels he/she should "run" the meeting. Although this
certainly is possible, it is not necessarily desirable. The meeting
facilitator as a neutral entity
can often more easily direct the process
throughout
the meeting. In addition, the client is then free
to
participate in one of the smaller groups and
become a
part of the group
process.
At the end of the
meeting, the facilitator will move
towards closure and assure that
commitments are
gained from the participants for future action.
Following the meeting, the meeting facilitator can
conduct an evaluation
of the meeting if desired. Also the client may request that the
facilitator check in with participants two to three weeks following the
meeting to determine their
progress on their commitments.
Employing a meeting
facilitator will increase
the likelihood of productive meetings.
Are their services worth the added expense? Meetings
are the way
business is done and the success of business relies on effective
meetings. In this fast-paced stressful working environment, highly paid
professionals travel
great distances at considerable company expense
and
expend valuable time in meetings. To hire
a
professional skilled in the
meeting process to ensure
that these human and financial resources are
effectively utilized and desired results are achieved
makes strategic
and budgetary sense.
Dr. Barbara Joyce Frank is an experienced
organizational management
consultant and meeting
facilitator who facilitates meetings nationally
and internationally, and is the Founder of Meeting Oasis,
a firm
specializing in meeting and retreat sites
in metropolitan Washington,
D.C.
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