Boundaries

When we are engaging coalition partners, workgroups or teams, we usually want them to actively participate in our meetings. Depending upon the meeting, the level of trust, comfortability of the partners and previous experiences in the meetings, participants will engage at varying levels. One of the ways to garner continued engagement in meetings is to […]

One of the signs of a functional and trusting group is that you can openly disagree with one another when you meet together. While this is not always easy and conflict can be unsettling, when you are able to disagree agreeably, you often make better and more thoughtful decisions. This is particularly applicable when you

In coalition meetings, we are great at informing, networking and discussing topics. Depending upon the group, sometimes, we are also great at actively working on projects, making progress toward our most important priorities and even collaborating with others. One of the areas that can be particularly challenging in any meeting – or group – is

When we bring diverse partners together to work toward a common cause, one of the benefits of the gathering is to garner multiple perspectives on a topic, issue or project. While this may seem like an easy thing to do, we have to provide an atmosphere where participants feel comfortable sharing their viewpoints even if

When we are hosting coalition and workgroup meetings, we want people to come ready to share their perspectives and contribute to the common cause. Although we may not always explicitly say it, we want to create an atmosphere of trust so that people are willing to engage and share their best. In order to do

Whether we realize it or not, we all come to meetings with expectations of others. If we have previously met with a particular group, our past experiences influence our current or future expectations. Even if this is a new meeting or a new group of people, we still bring expectations based on previous experiences and

In every meeting, you will have people who are more inclined to talk, share and provide their perspective or feedback and you will have others who listen more and talk less. If we have been meeting with a group for a long time, we develop a group culture where we may expect our colleagues to

One of the most common meeting expectations that rarely actually happens is the idea of “start on time; end on time.” Last weekend I provided training on group dynamics and one of the questions was related to what to do when we participate in or lead meetings that do not actually start on time or

One of the best ways to apply Meeting Guiding Principle #1: Teacher of others and learner from others is to garner participation from as many people as possible. Whether you are leading a small or large group, there will always be some people who participate more actively than others. While you want to encourage that

If you are in the business of leading coalitions, you are also in the business of leading meetings – lots of meetings! 🙂 Over the past 20 years, I have adopted ome “guiding principles” that I like to apply to the meetings that I both lead and attend. One of my favorites is to “be