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:

  • Option 1 – go to the meeting.

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:

  • Option 1 – go to the meeting.
  • Option 2 – not go to the meeting.
  • Option 3 – go, but in a different way than the invite suggests.

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:

1. Is the meeting covering something you can contribute to, feel passionate about and/or will be involved in implementing afterwards? (If it is, you should probably go.)
2. If you didn’t go, but received a copy of the resulting actions, would that be enough for you? (If it would, you probably shouldn’t go.)
3. If you didn’t go, will “Somebody Important” think badly of you? (If they will/might, you should probably go. Or at least speak to them before declining.)
4. Is it symbolically important you’re there? (If it is, you should probably go.)

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:

  • “Looking at the agenda, I think it’s best I don’t come. You’ll have lots of strong opinions on this, and mine aren’t as important.”; or
  • “I don’t think I can contribute much to this agenda, so won’t attend.”

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.

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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:

  • Use people’s names, so they know you’re talking to them.
  • When you speak, start with your name, so they know it’s you “It’s Andy. My thoughts on this are . . .”
  • Ask more closed questions – they’re easier for people to answer. You can always ask a follow-up open question to the person who responded to the closed one.

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:

  • If someone doesn’t need to be there, don’t invite them (though consider sending the resulting actions to them afterwards).
  • If someone could be there but in a different way – dial-in, attend the first part only etc. – ask which they’d prefer.

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.

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