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E2: Using the
Power of Ethics and Etiquette in American Business by Phyllis Davis Rating: • (Read only if your interest is strong) |
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Right Shoulder Etiquette trumps ethics when it comes to
the number of pages devoted to these topics in Phyllis Davis’ new book, E2: Using the
Power of Ethics and Etiquette in American Business. Etiquette is ok, I
guess, but I expect that women are more likely than men to read and pay
attention to suggestions about etiquette, whether in the office or elsewhere.
This book was coasting toward a DNR rating (do not read), when I came across
the following sentence (p. 150): “Wear your name tag on your right shoulder.
This makes it easy for people to read as they reach across your torso toward
your right shoulder to shake your hand.” Now, that’s something I can agree
with. I found myself briefing staff at many conferences with just such sage
advice. Since I found something practical and useful, I was able to award a
star to E
Squared. For those who want to find out more, here’s
a sample of what to expect. This is Chapter 12, “Business Meetings” (pp. 105-114): Once
you can lead a successful business meeting, you’re on your way to being
promoted into a leadership position in your company. By successfully leading
a meeting, you reveal a variety of aspects about your basic character.
Regardless of your academic accomplishments or your job-related skill level,
meetings show your ability to deal with people by using your soft skills. The
combination of your job skills and effective relationship skills gives you a decided
advantage for recognition within your company. After all, business meetings
are arenas where people relate to one another with civility and respect for the direct
purpose of accomplishing a particular agenda. If you develop a reputation for being a dull,
antagonistic, untrustworthy, or uninformed leader, your meetings will be
attended reluctantly and sporadically. Anyone who uses those same negative
characteristics as a meeting attendee won't be invited back. Whether you're
attending a business meeting or leading one, you need to understand what's
expected of you. Meetings are to be taken seriously. They are
carefully designed to create a highly focused atmosphere that is conducive
for conducting business. However, there is an obvious paradox at play here:
In this highly focused and serious atmosphere, you are expected to use your
soft skills to participate. No wonder few people enjoy business meetings and
complain they are too frequent, long, boring, and accomplish little. Without
knowing the best strategy for participating in or leading a meeting, it can
be easy to believe you should dumb down and park your brains at the door in
order to appear savvy. Actually, the opposite is true. The mere fact that a
leader invites you to attend a meeting indicates she or he believe you have a
valuable contribution to make. Your role as an attendee is to use your
diplomacy, finesse, and civility to make that contribution. Your personal meeting manners are contingent on
various factors ranging from the industry, size of the company, geographic
location, and even the personalities of the management. What might be
considered appropriate behavior in a small advertising agency in Venice,
California, is very different from what is expected within a large bank in
downtown Boston, Massachusetts. Normal is determined by your company's
corporate culture. Meeting Leader Techniques Leading a successful meeting is a formula that can
be duplicated. Here are the five components vital for creating a successful
meeting. 1.
Create the agenda. 2. Determine exactly what you want for an outcome in
the meeting. 3. Don't harp on the problem you're trying to
solve; instead, always focus on solutions. 4. Identify and assign necessary tasks to those in
the meeting. 5. Accomplish the agenda. Ten Techniques for
Leading a Successful Business Meeting 1.
Provide advance notice of the meeting to your attendees. Everybody's busy,
and since meetings take time and energy during a normal business day, advance
notice is vital to assure a good attendance. Small, informal, inner-office
meetings require less notice, but your associates will still appreciate
knowing about them ahead of time so they can arrange their schedules. A
one-week notice is a thoughtful consideration for people from other
departments who are invited to a meeting. Give people coming from out of town
two weeks notice so they can make travel plans. 2. Immediately after your meeting, jot down brief
notes about what transpired. You might leave out important details by waiting
to do this later. Send your manager or superior a brief e-mail covering the
major points you covered in your meeting. Your manager may also direct you to
send the meeting notes to all those attendees or those unable to attend. 3. Soft drinks, coffee, and snacks are great
enticements to lure people to your meetings. It’s common today to see
announcements or agendas saying, "Refreshments will be served 15 minutes
before the meeting." This gives your attendees a chance to arrive early
and get a snack before the meeting starts. 4. It is your role to introduce any new guest to
the group. You may simply give their name to a large group (10 or 15 people).
However, if the guest is a client, board member, or senior executive, try to
tell them the name and title of each person in the room. 5. People who already know one another don't need
name tags. However, it's courteous for everyone to wear name tags when
there's a guest present. Remember, the majority of people are visual
communicators, and seeing a name in print helps them memorize it. 6. Try to use words while facilitating the meeting
that indicate unity and show positive enthusiasm. Examples are we, us, can,
you, will, yes, success, the next step is, please, thank you. Avoid using
negative or condescending words such as no, won't, dumb, can't, wrong,
stupid, don't, never, shouldn't, and impossible. 7. The best time of day to hold a meeting is 10:00
A.M. This midmorning time allows attendees to stop by their office, have a
cup of coffee, and check their phone and e-mail messages first. The least
favorable times are Monday morning before 8:30 A.M. and Friday afternoon
after 4:30 P.M. It is also unwise to plan a meeting involving a major
decision that cannot be made in a brief time too close to lunch when people
are hungry and perhaps irritable because their blood sugar is low. 8. Allow a quick break in any meeting that lasts
more than 70 minutes to give attendees time to take care of biological needs,
check phone or e-mail messages, and return calls, get more coffee, or
socialize. Be considerate of the fact that business is still going on despite
the importance of your meeting, and people need time to stay plugged into
their routines and responsibilities. 9. Leave a few minutes for people to interact
during your meeting. Be careful, though, not to lose control and let too much
table talk eat up the time you need to complete your agenda. 10.
Reassure your attendees at least once during your meeting that you will do
your best to end the meeting on time. This subtle reminder is one way to stay
in control of your agenda. Scenario Setup: Leading a Successful
Meeting The following scenario setup shows you how to organize, lead, and execute a departmental meeting with 20 of your peer associates; Ms. Baxter, your immediate manager will also attend. This meeting was called to discuss the four changes in the Jones account. ·
Five days before the meeting, you create your agenda and e-mail a copy
to those 20 people you've invited to attend. ·
Two days before the meeting, you send an e-mail reminder to the 20
people to confirm the meeting time and location. You also reconfirm the
meeting room, arrange for coffee to be brought, and print extra copies of the
agenda. ·
It's now the day of your meeting, and you stand near the doorway with
a confident smile and greet your guests by saying, "Hello. Thanks for
coming." You also shake hands with a few people you haven't seen lately.
You have extra copies of the agenda near the front of the table for anyone
who didn't bring theirs. You invite your attendees to sit wherever they want,
except in one predesignated chair on the far side of the room that is saved
for your manager, Ms. Baxter. All the department's associates know each
other, so no one is wearing a name tag. ·
When Ms. Baxter arrives, you invite her to sit in the chair you have
saved for her to your right at the top edge of the table. Any person who sits
to your right (whether you're seated or standing) is always considered a
guest of honor at a business meeting or dining table. If there is more than
one important person in the room, you may invite them to sit next to or
across from each other. The exception is when these important people do not
like each other; then you do not want to place them facing each other.
Instead, seat them side by side and put a person between them so they don't
have to look at or speak to one another directly throughout the meeting. ·
Wait for three minutes after your designated time to begin the
meeting. This allows your guests time to arrive, take their seats, chat, get
coffee, and also accommodates various watch settings. ·
You now stand before the seated group and introduce yourself. You greet your
guests and give the purpose/reason for your meeting and a comment about the
agenda. ·
After you begin your meeting, two latecomers enter quietly into the
room. You do not stop your meeting to greet them or repeat what's already
been covered. ·
You then tell your attendees what outcome you want from your meeting.
For example, "We're going to identify the four changes that affect the
Jones account." ·
Now is also the time to invite your attendees to follow a few basic
meeting rules. Make the rules broad and generic and announce them in a
friendly tone that will ensure people's cooperation. You might say, "I
would also like to ask your cooperation, please. Turn off your cell phones
and beepers. There's coffee in the back; please help yourself but do so
quietly to avoid disrupting the meeting. We've got a lot to cover in an hour.
Thanks." ·
In case your audience seems uncomfortable, ask what's going on. The
room may be too hot, or people may be having a problem hearing you. It's up
to you as a leader to make your audience comfortable. ·
You have the four changes for the Jones account on a flip chart or in
a PowerPoint presentation that you carefully prepared before the meeting.
Each one of the four changes appears in a different color and on a separate page. Try
not to spend more than five minutes on each slide or visual graph since most
people have short attention spans and will become impatient and want to move
on. ·
When people start complaining about the problems with the Jones
account, you put your open hand up with the palm facing out. This is a
universal, nonverbal signal indicating STOP. Then you say, "We're
not here to complain. We're here to find solutions. Now, who has a
solution?" ·
Toward the end of your meeting, you repeat in a few short sentences
what you have said regarding the four changes in the Jones account. ·
You also take the time to identify and assign tasks and ask for
volunteers. For example, someone needs to take the Jones' accountant to lunch
to explain the changes, and someone needs to lead the next meeting in two
weeks. ·
You summarize what's transpired by quickly highlighting the changes on
the Jones account. ·
The last ten minutes of your meeting are for questions and answers.
One attendee's question takes too long to address and risks running your
meeting past the scheduled time; you agree to meet privately with the
individual. ·
You repeat each person's question back to them so they know you heard
it correctly. Then you answer in a way that is brief and affirmative. When
you don't know the answer to a question, you tell the person you'll get back
to him or her once you find it out. ·
At the end of your meeting, you thank the people who have accepted
tasks, offer your final comments, and thank everybody for attending. ·
Once the meeting ends and you've said goodbye to everyone, you put the
room back in its original order, return to your office, and prepare a quick
report while your mind is fresh about what occurred in the meeting. Bullet the notes to yourself and
send a brief report via e-mail to Ms. Baxter. You also ask Ms. Baxter if
she'd like you to e-mail a report to the meeting participants or those who
were unable to attend. The
Code of a Good Meeting Leader A good leader meets the following criteria: ·
Allows many people to share and discourages any one person from
dominating the meeting. ·
Takes charge of the room and assumes the leadership role to create and
control the agenda. ·
Creates order so that when people speak, the entire group hears them. ·
Stays on the track of the agenda and doesn't allow too much small talk
at the table. ·
Reaches a formal consensus on the meeting's agenda. ·
Doesn't allow too many interruptions to short circuit the momentum and
progress of agenda. ·
Creates a tight agenda that stays on track and runs on time by
discouraging people from going off on unrelated topics. ·
Is after the truth that impacts the issues on the agenda and doesn't
allow it to get buried or ignored by participants who are too intimidated or
shy to tell the truth. ·
Makes sure attendees leave the meeting with specific directions and
know exactly what they need to do. ·
Coordinates the attendees' efforts to create results. ·
Respects the time of those attending and doesn't pull them away from
their desks too often or long. ·
Allows enough breaks during the meeting. ·
Makes sure the meeting was valuable and creates results. ·
Doesn't plan a meeting too close to lunch when everybody's hungry. Checklist: When You're Attending
a Meeting q
Greet the meeting leader (handshake optional) when you enter. q
If you're a junior officer in the company, don't assume you can sit
anywhere. Wait until others have taken their seats or ask the leader where
you should sit. q
Avoid talking to attendees about subjects not related to the topic of
the meeting. q
Don't whisper or criticize during the meeting. No complaining is
appropriate. you're there to create solutions. q
Always put your briefcase on the floor and not on the table. q
Be concise and participate with informed and helpful contributions but
do not ramble. q
Stay on track and stick to the subject on the agenda. q
Never resort to ranting on any subject. Remain optimistic and
realistic. q
Be punctual for the start of the meeting and your return after breaks. q
Keep both feet flat on the floor at all times. Avoid sprawling,
yawning, or allowing your eyes to dart around the room. q
Keep your cell phone and beeper turned off. q
Show your total attention to those speaking by sitting up straight and
focusing on them with direct eye contact. q
Arrive prepared and follow through with any tasks you agree to do. q
Smile. Appear pleasant
and engaged, regardless of who's speaking, what the topic is, or
how long the meeting goes on. q
Do your homework ahead of time and know enough about agenda topics to be able
to contribute. q
Take notes when appropriate. Ask questions to clarify any points of
confusion. q
Throw away any trash that accumulates during breaks and at the end. q
Thank the leader after the meeting (handshake optional). CHAPTER SUMMARY * Meetings are held to brainstorm, educate, inform, solve problems,
comply with procedure, reach a consensus, encourage creativity, and identify
and assign tasks. * The five basic components of a business meeting
are: 1) deciding the purpose and creating an agenda; 2) defining the intended
outcome; 3) solving problems without complaining; 4) assigning tasks; 5)
completing the agenda. * As a meeting facilitator, your job is to define
the purpose and reason for the meeting, prepare and accomplish the agenda,
choreograph the agenda to produce results, and keep people informed. If you’re one of the rare executives who’s
at all interested in etiquette, E Squared
is the book for you. If you realize that few other executives will read this,
you may decide to pick it up to separate yourself from the pack. Otherwise,
take a pass. Steve Hopkins, August 22, 2003 |
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ã 2003 Hopkins and Company, LLC The
recommendation rating for this book appeared in the September
2003 issue of Executive
Times URL
for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/E
Squared.htm For
Reprint Permission, Contact: Hopkins
& Company, LLC • 723 North Kenilworth Avenue • Oak Park, IL 60302 E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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