I respectfully disagreed. This is the time when people need to be the most engaged and committed.

Successful people see opportunity everywhere. If people would spend less time worrying, and more time hustling and being creative, then they would end up being more successful. Their current job might end – but if they are always connecting with others, and finding solutions to problems, they will land on their feet.

It isn’t easy today – but where was it written that life was easy or fair? I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “The meek shall inherit the Earth.” My mantra is the meek get the leftovers from those who went out and made things happen. You decide.

I’ve taken those words to heart – as one of my goals (note that I didn’t say resolutions) for 2012.

In my role as business owner (employer) — speaker/coach/trainer, mother, daughter, grandmother, wife, colleague and friend — I wear many hats.

I often feel like an octopus, with each arm pulled at the same time – in different directions. What can happen? Rushing to get everything done. Not being 100% present at any one time, not fully appreciating the activity (relationship, etc.), and often losing or forgetting something.

Late last year, it was leaving my computer in North Carolina, losing my good prescription glasses, and forgetting to pick up all of the ingredients I need for a recipe.

So, my mantra this year is to slow down. How’s it working so far? If you don’t count losing an airport parking receipt, or forgetting to put one bag on the TSA inspection line, it’s working pretty well. I guess I need to keep practicing.

What kind of year will this be for you? I expect it to be fabulous.

From my experience (not to mention research on happiness and positivity), when people expect the best – they typically get it. And, of course, vice versa. I don’t mean to sound naïve, but I do believe the goal is to look for the positive. When people look for the positive, they tend to see opportunity and make more things happen.

In Shawn Achor’s book, The Happiness Advantage (a great read – good ideas for rewiring the brain to be more positive), he talks about rose-tinted glasses as opposed to rose colored. 2012 is a great year to put on the rose-tinted glasses.

A great activity listed in the book: Every day, record three good things that have happened to you. They don’t have to be monumental – just positive things.

For me today, one positive is that I actually wrote this blog! No doubt, more good things will soon follow…

It doesn’t matter what the industry is, or what your job title is … we are all in the people business.

This sounds so obvious doesn’t it? But take time to look at what usually happens at work … accomplishing various tasks or goals is paramount and emphasized by management.

Believe me, I am as task-focused as the next person, but accomplishing daily activities and “getting the job done” doesn’t negate or eliminate the importance of being respectful of the people who work with you (or for you).

Frayed tempers, lack of common courtesies, clarity of expectations, timelines are just a few things that impact relationships, and, ultimately, the quality of the task (whether it’s done right, within deadlines, or even at all).

Being people-focused ultimately helps accomplish the task more quickly – and more efficiently.

If you want to get things done – build relationships. If you want to be seen as a resource, help others. You’ll be amazed at how much more productive and successful you ultimately become.

Many work issues could be avoided if people would get up from their computers, and walk to the office (or cubicle) nearby and actually have a conversation.

I believe a person-to-person interaction beats technology any day, hands down, by a ratio of at least 10-1. If after you chat, you still need to document something, then by all means, put it in writing.

I laugh when people tell me how many “friends” or “followers” they have on Facebook and Twitter – or how LinkedIn they are.

Relationships aren’t part of a numbers game.

The goal is to go from contact to connection, to building relationships.

Your job – and your life – will be more satisfying if you focus on people and not your smart phone or computer screen.

Yet, all too often,  it happens. 

Stressful situations (and that seems to happen daily in our frenzied, wired 24-7 workplace), exacerbates a situation which occasionally leads to inappropriate behaviors.

Although I coach people for a variety of reasons – leaving “dead bodies” is frequently a concern. What are some techniques to use, to avoid this?

1)      Recognize. The behaviors and identify what triggers them.

2)      Own the impact of lashing out, ordering around, insulting, etc.

3)      Catch yourself when you feel the adrenaline surge – at that point, make a decision … is it worth it?

4)      Take a deep breath, take a walk, pinch yourself. In other words, get some time, space and perspective.

5)      If you ended up lashing out before you caught yourself, go back to the person (people) and apologize.

Ultimately, leaving “dead bodies” is not a path to effective leadership or long-term success.

Of course, messaging and content delivery are critical. Where I get the most questions as a trainer and executive coach, however, is how to handle the question-and-answer session.

One of the areas I consistently noticed during all of my recent sessions, which definitely needs more attention as it’s a critical component to speaking success — is effectively handling the Q & A session.

6 ways to encourage questions

1) Let people know when you will take questions – throughout the entire presentation, at specific break points, or at the end. This manages audience expectations. Of course, you need to take timing into account. The more questions, the more time it takes.

2) Ask for questions in an open/assumptive manner. Avoid the clichéd, “Do you have any questions?” It’s much more inviting the say, “Who would like to open with the first question?” Or, “What questions do you have?” Then, be prepared to wait a minute to receive them

If, however, there are no questions …

3) Be prepared to wait up to 10 seconds before people actually ask the question. Don’t worry – they aren’t looking at you, they are thinking. Be comfortable with silence.

4) It’s always a good idea to come prepared with sample questions. You’d say something like, “A question I’m frequently asked is ….” Or “A question I first had was …. ” This gives people time to think about what they want to ask.

5) Look like you want questions. This means that you need to look at the audience members; rolling your eyes doesn’t count! Avoid closed body language (crossing your arms, for example), sighing, cleaning up your papers, or shutting down your laptop all don’t encourage participants to ask questions. Don’t gather notes, or otherwise organize/tidy up your area.

6) Get creative.  In larger groups, or groups who are uncomfortable asking questions, you can either have them write questions on a card, or break into pairs or smaller groups, and come up with questions. In the day of smart phones, you even could have them text a question.

Here’s five quick pointers for what not to do during a Q & A session, with some pointers for what I recommend:

• Compliment (if you compliment one question and not the next, you will discourage further questions)

• Over answer (provide more information that was asked or is needed)

• Jump into the answer (it’s OK to think a minute before you speak, and DO paraphrase the question)

• Say, “As I said in my presentation …”  (how demeaning is that!)

• Answer only to the person who asked it (you need to be looking at everyone)

Next week, I’ll discuss how to handle specific types of questions. Remember, if you have trouble getting questions, you need to look at your behaviors and the impact that they are having.

“Now what?” you may ask. Well, it’s not over yet.

Just like a well-written and delivered presentation, the meeting needs to end well and have action items acted upon.

This gets us to the final stage of meetings – the post-land phase.

Post-land has two parts – what happens at the end of the meeting, and what happens after the meeting.

Ending the meeting:

—         Review what was agreed upon

—         Discuss next steps – and get verbal agreement

• What needs to be done
• By when?
• By whom?

—         Determine what gets communicated and what doesn’t, and to whom

—         Thank the group

• Express appreciation for everyone’s participation
• Give credit to specific individuals

—         Evaluate and measure your success

After the meeting — Here are three types of questions to help you measure meetings success:

The What

—         Did you accomplish your meeting objective?

—         Was it done correctly (meet criteria, etc.)?

—         Was it done on time?

The How

—         Was the meeting process you used efficient?

—         Was the process clear & logical?

—         Did the process make sense for the task at hand?

The Who

—         Did all team members feel valued during the meeting?

—         Did the team members feel supported?

—         Do team members trust each other?

Although meetings may differ in purpose and scope, there are always similarities. If you use the steps and tools I’ve shared over the last month or so, you will have better meeting success (and less time and money lost).

I’d love to hear your thoughts on my effective meetings series, and share your best practices.

The next phase, “land,” helps the group members reach an agreement and make decisions.

Here are a few techniques that you can use:

— Negative Poll: A tool used to wake people from the typical head nodding that happens in meetings, and make them think about their response. With it you are asking for those that do not agree, rather than those that do. Some examples of this technique are. . .

*Who can’t agree to strike this idea from the list?

* Who is not able to live with this solution?

— Both/And: Sometimes groups get stuck in making the final decision because they feel they must choose between two options. Using this tool, you can suggest adding two ideas together to make one, or doing both ideas rather than choosing between the two.

— Build Up/Eliminate: This tool is used to negotiate agreement when you encounter resistance from one of more participants. You ask the question, “What could I add to or take away from this idea that would make you more comfortable with it?” Often, you’ll find that small adjustments to an idea can make a huge difference in getting others to agree.

— Voting: Many groups use this as a decision-making tool. If your ultimate goal is build a collaborative environment, voting is not a tool that BRODY recommends. With voting, there are winners and there are losers. It can be a method that alienates others. However, there are times that voting can be effective, here are a few:

*When the topic being considered is not controversial

*When the need for buy-in is low

*When the group involved in the decision making is large and unwieldy (ex. political elections)

Stay tuned for next week’s blog on the Post-Land step to making meeting more effective.

I’ve already focused on the pre-launch and launch stages of successful meetings.

Stage 3 is to navigate – which is to guide the meeting attendees to make sense of the information that came out of the idea generation stage (launch).

The navigate stage has two key objectives. The first is to clarify the ideas and information that was generated.

Here are some good questions to ask, to clarify that everyone is on the same page, include:

— What questions do you have regarding the ideas we generated and listed on the flip chart?

— Would anyone like clarification on any of these items listed?

Once the ideas have been clarified, take the opportunity to eliminate duplicates from the list before going on to stage 2 of navigation, which is to prioritize.

There are a number of tools to prioritize. Here are five that BRODY trainers use (and teach in our meeting facilitation program):

— N/3: This tool is used when you’re trying to narrow a list of brainstormed ideas. This is not voting, but rather a way of determining what ideas have the most and least support. You take the number of ideas listed (N) and divide it by 3. That’s the number of “votes” each person gets.  

— Advocating: The facilitator invites participants to take turns speaking on one of the ideas listed. Specifically, they can share their opinion on why the ideas should stay or go. This advocating is done to let anyone that wishes to, have the opportunity to have his/her opinion heard. This works best if each person is limited to 1 to 2 minutes of advocating. It can be a quick way to deepen people’s understanding of the issues. 

— Evaluating Against Criteria: Another way to narrow your list is to evaluate your list of ideas against a set of criteria.

— Pros/Cons: The facilitator invites the participants to take turns speaking about the pros and cons of the suggested solutions. This method allows the group to see the relative merits of each potential idea and lead discussion to the most favored outcome(s).

— Priority Sequence: In a round robin fashion, each participant identifies their “most favorite” idea and their “least favorite” idea from the list generated in the launching session. This technique assists in helping the group to discover the ideas that require the most attention and discussion during the navigation stage. 

These navigation tools allow for discussion and information sharing. By selecting a navigation tool, the facilitator has created a methodology that’s clear, unbiased and understood.

Let me know if you have any questions regarding the meeting navigation tools and process – and feel free to share how you implement some of these strategies for meeting success.