reflective posting from meetings - late, I forgot :-(

I found this coaching session the most difficult so far.  As a coachee I had difficulty coming up with good and poor meeting experiences.  However, after reading other blog posts and hearing other coach-coachees as observer, I came up with other examples.  I found that meetings of about one hour for passing messages throughout an organization are very effective.  I mentioned the framework of an upper management COmité des OPérations (COOP) meeting on Monday morning, followed by a meeting of section head, admin assistant and group leaders was very effective for passing messages and ensuring that communications channels were open.  While I was a group leader for a scientific group, we also found that having group meetings (when all members could be present) was very effective in helping to coordinate and ensure collaboration among the various R&D initiatives within the group.  When I was group leader for informatics personnel we had group meetings only occasionally since the informatics support function is mostly made up of individual interventions.  For the most part, ad hoc coordination was all that was needed.  Meetings were held mostly for periodic budgeting (determining how much money would be needed for software purchases, training, determining priorities etc.) and developping annual business plans.

As a coach I found it somewhat surprising how well the coachee was able to coordinate and brainstorm a group presentation with only limited interactions beforehand.  He said that the group felt energized (by the looming deadline :-) and really got their creative juices flowing.  As a group they were so pleased with the advancing of their work package that they did not realize that another meeting to polish up their group presentation was needed.  That is one thing that is very important to realize when doing group presentations.  Some people are very good at doing impromptu presentations and at understanding how to transition from one presenter to another, but it is not natural for all presenters.  Practicing beforehand is important to help ensure all are "on the same page".

I learnt from this exercise that there are many surprising twists and turns and detours on the road to running effective meetings.  Preparing beforehand and ensuring that all members are given the opportunity to "do their homework" in advance is critical to creating a smooth-running meeting.  Of course, not all meetings are meant to be smooth-running, an example being budgeting meetings where it is difficult to come to win-win solutions (there is only so much money to go around).  In cases such as these, and also where participants may not have the same understanding regarding the planned outcomes, it is critical for the meeting organizer to create a common understanding before the meeting starts.  With a common understanding of the desired outcomes from the meeting there is a much better chance for the discussions to stay "on topic" and ensure that all efforts reach toward the desired meeting goals.