8
When you want to only attend the meetings you need to
When people get invited to meetings, they often act as if their options are:
And that’s it.
You’re invited, so you have to go, right?
Well, not exactly. It’s a meeting invitation, not a court summons. When you’re invited, you actually have three options:
Ignoring the third for now (we’ll come back to it later – it’s very useful), here are some questions to help decide between the first two – whether to attend or not:
You’ll notice the word “probably” appears a lot. That’s because the personalities and politics involved mean there are no absolute do/don’t rules. But if you decide not to go, tell the owner beforehand, saying “Thanks for inviting me”, followed by something like:
If appropriate, you can always add “Please send me a copy of everyone’s actions, so I know what’s happening next”.
So, we’ve covered the first two options – whether to attend or not. Let’s now revisit the third – to attend the meeting, but in a different way. Here are a few examples you could consider, alongside what to say to help them happen.
By the way, if you’re dialing in, here’s a quick tip.
Have you noticed how there can be long silences in conference calls?
One reason is that, without visual cues, people don’t know when it’s their turn to speak. My mum – who, as a blind person, knows a lot about this – first pointed this out to me. I’ve since found it to be true. And it makes sense: if you went to a meeting where everyone had their eyes shut, it would be much harder for people to speak up.
So, when you’re dialing in – or, indeed for any conference call – remember it’s like you’re meeting with blind people. There are no visual cues. So, instead:
And here’s two important points to finish.
Firstly, just as this section’s techniques will help you with meetings that others organize, so too do they help others with meetings that you organize:
And secondly, when people attend your meetings, make them brilliant (or why would they attend future ones?). The next chapter teaches you a simple way to do this, using my PALM technique.