The Major Missteps at the Beginning of Meetings and How to Avoid Them

Take a moment to reflect on a lousy meeting. What made it so bad? Was it one of those meetings where the group never really made a decision? Or was it one where people seemed to repeatedly jump off topic? Or perhaps it was one where people were struggling to come to consensus, and the formal leader surprised everyone by announcing a decision. Or maybe it was all of the above.

After training thousands of people and facilitating hundreds of groups, my colleagues and I have come to an inescapable conclusion: the beginning of a conversation usually predicts the outcome. Even with the best of intentions, most people begin conversations in a way that decreases the quality of decisions made, decreases trust, increases miscommunication and confusion, and limits commitment.

There are a few simple things you can do to avoid this. They are widely known by one name or another.

These simple things are very difficult to do consistently. Each of us, for our own reasons, avoids these simple things in many situations where they would be most useful.

That's what this master class is about: increasing your ability to produce these behaviors consistently when it really counts. Our clients tell us this focus on generating consistent behavior is what distinguishes us from everyone else they've worked with.

You will learn the technique that we use to begin conversations well. It is a simple process.

If you volunteer your examples, you will get personalized attention and feedback. This will increase your ability to use this process consistently “under pressure”.

You will gain insight into the gap between your current approach to beginning conversations and our ideal, and you will learn practical tools to narrow this gap.

We will spend most of the webinar on your real work examples, and I will give you real-time feedback on your use of the skills. I’ll also demonstrate how to handle situations you you’re not sure about. Together we will examine the gap between your espoused approach and your actual behavior, and you will have an opportunity to integrate your learning on the spot.

Your stories, opportunities and challenges will be the practice field. I'll share some key concepts – mostly via advance reading – and we'll quickly move into "clinic" mode, where we work together to make the material practical and meaningful for you.

We'll do all this in a fast-paced, focused way, and the class will be highly interactive. We're limiting participation to ensure this, and the webinar will be an hour long.

If you can't attend, you can purchase a recording of the entire class. If you choose this option, you will still receive all the supporting materials and assignments.

If you are still reading, I think you'll find the webinar quite valuable. I invite you to participate.

• The advance assignment and course materials to help you get the most out of the teleclass
• The digital recording of the teleclass. We will send you a link to download it, along with the materials above
• The complete transcript of the webinar, if purchased