I participated in thousands of meetings over the years with hundreds of professional colleagues. Over time it became clear that the same factors impacted meeting quality on a reoccurring basis. Based on my experiences, I developed a simple technique called Table Setting for kicking off meetings and minimizing these factors. While simple, #TableSetting is amazingly effective. Having the momentum in your favor at the start of the meeting really improves the chances that there will be smooth sailing as the meeting progresses.
Table Setting is a great tool for relationship professionals regardless of experience. For seasoned professionals, particularly those running at high rates of speed, it is easy to grow a bit complacent and lose focus. Having a structure that requires minimal prep but insures consistency is very valuable. Table Setting is particularly useful for younger professionals looking to improve confidence and performance.
These are the steps that I followed when starting a meeting. I annotated every presentation book with these items and in many ways, it was like a security blanket. The system always worked to minimize potential issues.
Introductions
Time check
Agenda review
Seek questions, objections or concerns
Kick off
Introductions
Generally, the relationship professional is asked to kick things off and the first order of business is to introduce yourself and your colleagues. These intros should be short and sweet and designed to position the team accordingly. Introductions should be vetted with the team before hand during the collaboration process. It’s also a great time to ask about the roles and responsibilities of the guests you have not met before.
More than likely you have introduced yourself thousands of time throughout your life. So this is a perfect way to engage the brain and get the jaw working. It's also an excellent time to highlight common denominators to establish connections. One of my favorites is when one of the guests and one of your colleagues went to the same university or share a history at another employer.
By the way, if the intro part is a struggle for you, it might be time to explore another role!
Confirm Allotted Time
It is imperative to do a quick time check at the start of the meeting with a simple comment like “we are planning on 90 minutes”. I have experienced numerous situations where after too much small talk or minor updates, a key participant looked at their watch and said “I have to leave in 15 minutes”. Imagine flying a senior member of your firm 3,000 miles and having this happen? In other cases, I have had visitors say “we were planning on 5 hours”.
Restate The Agenda And Seek Questions, Issues, Concerns, Again!
Setting and controlling the agenda are crucial elements of meeting effectiveness. If you have done your prep work well, then the agenda has been discussed in advance and generally approved. Also, when you were formulating the agenda, you asked what other issues, questions or concerns were on the mind of your client or prospect. Now is the time to once again outline the discussion topics that were agreed upon and ask about other issues they may wish to discuss. The key thing is to minimize surprises and surface issues early. Once issues are on the table, they can be dealt with accordingly. Ideally, the issue is recognized and either dealt with immediately or slotted into the agenda at the appropriate time. Sometimes it is a very pressing matter and has to be handled then and there. It could be performance, style drift, firm issues like excessive growth, fees, use of leverage, any number of things that should not remain hidden until the question is sprung unexpectedly. Because during this time, the guest with the question has been waiting to ask it and that means paying less attention to your message.
One of my former colleagues used an approach to deal with issues of concern that were raised early on by saying “there is a short answer and a long answer. Would you like me to provide a short answer now and get into more detail later or discuss it when we get to that section of the presentation”?
The key thing is to surface these issues and then determine how best to address them. If an issue is deferred it is crucial that you make note of it and don’t over look it when it is appropriate to discuss. Sometimes, you can surface opportunities as well. On a regular basis, when asked if there were other issues on their mind, a guest would ask about another strategy we offered or for some insight into a research piece we had written.
During a recent training session we were role playing and practicing table setting. When the question was asked “is there anything else on your mind” the “client” stated “ well yes, we are seriously looking at cutting back our hedge fund allocation and reallocating the dollars elsewhere in the portfolio”. The participant practicing their table setting simple acknowledged the comment and moved on. This is exactly the type of thing you hope to gain insight into by asking the “what else” question. Immediately, the relationship professional should have asked about why the investor was moving in this direction, how the various decisions on reallocating would be made, timing, etc. The entire presentation could then be subtly shifted toward addressing crucial issues around the decision, positioning to be a surviving manager or minimizing the redemption.
One of the major benefits of proper table setting is that it affords your colleagues attending the meeting an opportunity to settle in, to study the participants and their moods, to think about how to handle the questions they are hearing and to adjust their thinking on key points of emphasis.
Kick Things Off
By now, the meeting hopefully has gotten off to a good start. The agenda has been discussed, any additional issues have been surfaced, you are warmed up and you can get into the meat of the presentation. You may have to make adjustments due to time constraints, you may have to redirect the flow because the matters surfaced are so pressing they require more time than planned, you may have to see if additional resources can be utilized. So while anyone can follow the table setting outline, calling audibles and making adjustments in the moment can be challenging. This is where experience comes into play.
Table setting provides a repeatable framework for insuring meetings start off well and helps minimize a variety of factors that can impact meeting effectiveness. While it is not a panacea, done well, table setting offers a variety of advantages to both the new and seasoned professional.
Comments