Meeting Essentials: Prevent Sidetracking
Like most organizations, your firm is divided into departments and business units (BUs), each of which focuses on a particular operational specialty. This stratification becomes most obvious when you meet with colleagues from different departments to discuss the launch of a foreign BU. As you direct the meeting, you soon discover that the open-forum brainstorming has led to sidetracking, and the present consensus reflects departmental rather than corporate priorities. In order to meet the coming deadline, it’s up to you to maintain the session's focus.
What Can You Do?
1. Renew the Session - Remind yourself that you're in charge, which means that the ultimate success or failure of the solution rests on your shoulders. Consensus ideas may appeal to everyone else in the room, but your co-workers are not your clients. Assert your expertise, then lay out your concerns about the consensus solution. Point out flaws and explain that you need the group to come up with a new idea.
2. Convert the Consensus Idea Into a New Solution - Acknowledge that the consensus came about because people with different priorities were trying to find common ground, but let the group know that the solution they've reached will not appease upper management. Make it clear to your group that the final decision needs to reflect the strategy of the entire company, not just their individual BUs. Most importantly, reassure the group that you have faith in their ability to find a solution that is in line with corporate strategy.
3. Recognize Realities - Take 5 minutes to brainstorm concepts related to corporate strategy to ensure that everyone is on the same page, then explain why the group’s solution is inadequate. This sets up a refutation pattern, a filtering system where each person involved in the brainstorming session weighs their ideas against corporate strategy. Validate concerns that are brought to the table, but encourage everyone to prioritize the company’s interests.
When you establish a refutation pattern and encourage everyone to think of the company’s goals, everyone present will be working towards a common goal, and the brainstorming session’s ideas will begin to align with the identified strategy. Employees will feel that their own concerns are validated and not merely overlooked, and more importantly, they feel empowered to consider the big picture.
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