[MeetingArkAdmin]

Do you prepare briefing notes / pre-reading for many of your meetings? Some companies are starting meetings with a period for silently reading the briefing notes… what do you think?

[Ron Eagle]

Preparation, Preparation, Preparation, ….. if you are chairing you must know the meeting subject inside out; the outcomes you are looking for; the most likely questions (and answers); the nature and positions (ie support levels for the subject) of each attendee and their levels of influence etc…..

Also make sure your presentation materials, method ie. flip chart, projector, laptops etc. are all in order and working.

Also make sure the room is suitable with enough chairs, refreshments if required, electric points, and of course is booked out for the duration you require.

Do not assume all this has been done even if you’ve delegated … follow up yourself beforehand to be CERTAIN its all been done as remember its YOU not your PA or subordinate that will have the egg on the face if the laptops aren’t working the conference phone is unusable, the power points are not all wired up, the meeting is interrupted by a double booked group etc….

 

k sure

[MeetingArkAdmin]

An interesting take on briefing documents is that of how Jeff Bezos at Amazon runs his meetings (with great success btw)

https://www.inc.com/justin-bariso/jeff-bezos-knows-how-to-run-a-meeting-here-are-his-three-simple-rules.html

“No PowerPoints are used inside of Amazon,” Bezos proudly declares. “Somebody for the meeting has prepared a six-page…narratively structured memo. It has real sentences, and topic sentences, and verbs, and nouns–it’s not just bullet points.”

In his recent letter to shareholders, Bezos details the work that goes into these memos, which he says may take up to a week or more to write and refine:

“The great memos are written and rewritten, shared with colleagues who are asked to improve the work, set aside for a couple of days, and then edited again with a fresh mind. They simply can’t be done in a day or two.”

As my colleague Carmine Gallo recently pointed out, memos like these are a great idea because our brains process good storytelling much better than hard data. Such narrative memos give authors the chance to fully communicate the thoughts behind their ideas, and give meeting participants the chance to better understand full concepts.

 

[kieranfoley]

Interesting to have an approach that seems to be an exercise in collaborative writing as a team. I am curious how Amazon avoid getting into “Revision Hell”. I saw this happen when editing a Divisional newsletter in a large Corporate. Each layer of organisation would countermand the changes from the level underneath them!

[Ron Eagle]

Yes, much empathy to this type of ethos. Having worked in Central Government I can say it is almost de rigueur to expect this and bud it in almost as a set contingency in any timeline for decisions.

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