It is the responsibility of each participant at a meeting to ensure that it attains its objectives. Prepare in advance and actively contribute to make every meeting productive.
Taking an Active Role
As a participant in a meeting, it is vital to be well-briefed. Focus on the aims of the meeting by reading the agenda and any previous minutes in advance. Consider your expected role and how you would like to contribute, then prepare accordingly.
Gathering Information
Carry out some basic but thorough background research before a meeting to help you make an informed and valid contribution. Gather information by collecting new data, for instance, by talking to colleagues and experts, or reading relevant publications and research material – or by consulting old notes, minutes of meetings, or company records. Your preparation should also include your research on the other attendees. Detailed information at this stage will enable you to take an appropriate approach that is carefully targeted at attaining your objectives.
Points to Remember
- Background research is essential for any contribution.
- Contracting other participants before a meeting breaks the ice and allows for a useful exchange of information.
- Personal rivalries between participants must be identified.
- It may be necessary to canvass support on big issues in advance.
- Participants can be sounded out in advance of a meeting.
Identifying Opposition
Before a meeting, try to discover other attendees’ views on topics on the agenda, their interests, and whether any view has enough authority behind it to influence the result of the meeting regardless of the discussion. If your views are likely to meet strong resistance, try to identify your opponents and negotiate a compromise in advance, so that neither party has its authority undermined in public. It is important to understand opposing points of view to counter them successfully. You may not win over your opponents, but you should avoid deadlock.
Preparing for Negotiation
Negotiation is the bargaining that occurs between two parties that each possess something the other wants. The subject may not be a tangible object; it may be support for a particular course of action or assistance in performing a particular task. If you are negotiating, bring a firm goal or objective to the negotiation table – plus a strategy for achieving it. Your strategy should include points of resistance and areas that are open to compromise. To be a successful negotiator, you must be sensitive to the needs and preferences of others.
Listening to others will uncover areas of mutual agreement or weaknesses which you can then utilize during the negotiations. Remember that once each side has outlined their initial demands and concerns, you must both be willing to compromise in other to reach an acceptable settlement.
TIPS
- Work out what you want to say before a meeting begins.
- Brief other participants about problem issues before a meeting.
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