Quite often I\u2019ve been part of global leadership teams, who come together for a face-to-face meeting somewhere in the world for maybe two long days and then all dash off to catch planes or go to other meetings at the end of the planned agenda.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless as a team, you would like everyone to feedback to their locations or their own teams who report to them, what has been discussed and decided. Everyone will obviously have their own ideas about what was important or not for their own people, and how much detail is necessary, and that is fine. But it can be advantageous to have, if not an agreed script, at least a common view about what should definitely be covered, so that the whole global organisation has the opportunity to hear the same messages.<\/p>\n
A simple trick I discovered a number of years ago can help. And allows everyone to rush away from the meeting with the same single sheet of paper, factually or figuratively (aka electronically).<\/p>\n
At the basis are 8 questions which are answered in the course of the meeting and in the final communication note. And some of them can even be answered before the meeting.<\/p>\n
Practically I have done this either with flip chart and pen standing in front of the whole meeting, or with someone typing at the same time as it is projected while I have facilitated, so that everyone can see what is being written. You can either do this after each part of the meeting or indeed it is often easier to use 10 minutes at the end of each day. Everyone takes part and the words are agreed. And it really is as simple as I say.<\/p>\n
Here are the 8 questions or indeed the 8 sections of the one-pager<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
What meeting was it?<\/strong><\/p>\n Presumably the meeting has some sort of title, even if it is only the organisation\u2019s leadership team meeting!<\/p>\n When & where? <\/strong><\/p>\n Dates and location: can be filled in immediately!<\/p>\n Who attended? <\/strong><\/p>\n Names and job titles: can obviously also be written up at the beginning of the meeting. If there were special guests or external speakers they can be mentioned as well.<\/p>\n Why did we meet?<\/strong><\/p>\n An interesting question. And if this cannot be answered in one or two simple bullet points then maybe the meeting shouldn\u2019t have been held in the first place!<\/p>\n As an example, when I was VP Strategy of the Shell shared service centre network, we held a leadership team meeting in Kuala Lumpur with both the General Managers (GMs) of the eight centres and the Functional Global Heads (eg Finance, IT etc, called the CIMT). Our \u2018why did we meet\u2019 bullets were: <\/em><\/p>\n What did we discuss?<\/strong><\/p>\n Can actually be taken from the agenda (if the meeting sticks to it!) For the most part this can just be titles of sessions or even shorter. A short list of the main points. But for some of the discussions an additional half a sentence may be useful as a reminder of content.<\/p>\n From the same example, some of these bullets were:<\/em><\/p>\n What did we decide?<\/strong><\/p>\n Simple bullet points on the main decisions taken. Detail is not necessary for this document and can always be filled in when the participant feeds back in person.<\/p>\n Again some examples from the same meeting:<\/em><\/p>\n What did it feel like?<\/strong><\/p>\n I like this question because otherwise the feedback can seem dry and theoretical. Even top leadership meetings are about people interacting with each other. So a few descriptors of how the participants felt about and during the meeting, can add to a successful organisational-wide debrief.<\/p>\n The words used in the same KL meeting were:<\/em><\/p>\n Open discussions. Teamwork. Support. \u201cWe are not alone\u201d. Tiring. Energising.<\/em><\/p>\n Follow-up<\/strong><\/p>\n Not necessarily all the action points, that would be too much, but what are the commitments that have been made, that are useful for the organisation as a whole to know.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In conclusion, this is remarkably simple to do, the process ensures everyone owns the result, and it is ready when people leave. And makes sure at least the most important aspects are fed back to the wider organisation as a whole.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Quite often I\u2019ve been part of global leadership teams, who come together for a face-to-face meeting somewhere in the world for maybe two long days and then all dash off to catch planes or go to other meetings at the end of the planned agenda. Nevertheless as a team, you would like everyone to feedback […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,17,5,6,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chairing-and-facilitating","category-corporate-universities","category-hr-management","category-remote-teams-and-global-working","category-workshops-training"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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