Advanced Business Meeting Skills

The basics are:


Set outcomes!
Ask yourself “what is that you ideally want?” and “what is the minimum you will accept?" and be clear about that in your head.

Agree meeting time frames and set an agenda in advance.

Aim to finish your meeting with a little time to spare.

Use rapport skills (match body posture – subtly, match the words the person you want something from, uses) and ensure that you mean what you say and that this comes across as so, to build trust and enthusiasm. Build credibility at every opportunity.

If you believe someone else has the power, it might just be a belief and that you are giving control over to them. There is nothing worth being intimidated or impressed by.

Making threats, antagonising or directly contradicting people is pointless, it does not produce useful results. Ignore others’ threats, posturing and power games, these are irrelevant to your outcome and could distract you from what is important and where you want to go.

Team Meeting Skills

I'm often astounded at how many organisations run unsuccessful meetings, so here some tips, we add some NLP into it too, there where the items are in bold, if you'd like to know please email and ask how to find out about the NLP aspects.

The three skills which make the biggest difference to the effectiveness of meetings than to any other kind of communication are:

Knowing what you want – having outcomes
Noticing what you are getting – using your senses
Keeping changing what you are doing – being flexible

Beforehand

1. Have your outcomes set for each section of content. Check - are there outcomes for: you, your team, your department, the organisation, or anyone else involved? Ensure that the outcomes and evidence are sensory based (that is - what you will see, hear and feel when you have this outcome). For a team meeting write the outcomes down and keep them highly visible (e.g. on a flipchart).

2. Gather other people’s outcomes and assure that everyone is happy about which outcomes are the priorities for this meeting.

3. Set the time frames for the meeting. Ensure that each person involved gets a chance to say what they need to say in their allotted time. Do not allow any one person to monopolise all of the time. If necessary, interrupt them politely and bring the meeting back on track.

4. Check at regular intervals what is happening for you, for other people, and for the meeting process.

5. Watch and listen out for for red herrings (things that are irrelevant) and ask the following ‘relevancy challenge’ type of question (respectfully), “Excuse me, I’m not clear how the issues you are raising are helping us to achieve our outcome?”

6. If any member of the team is repeatedly blocking the process of achieving the meeting’s outcomes by raising ‘cannots or buts’, an easy way to keep the responsibility with them is by asking questions like, “What would have to happen for us to be able to...?”. This keeps the responsibility for solving problems with the person who is raising them.

7. Summarise decisions and intended action plans for each stage of the meeting.

8. Have each person internally rehearse their next action steps by going through what they are going to do by acting 'as if' they are seeing it happening, talking themselves through the steps and actually putting the steps into action. If there are any concerns, go back and check that the outcome is stated in the positive, is specific, the way it might other people, other areas of work has been checked, what evidence there will be that the outcome has been achieved and what each person has to do themselves.

9. Finally, summarise all the next action steps, with a completion date and person specified to be responsible for the action. Confirm the date for the next meeting. Above all, enjoy practising all of these meeting skills at every opportunity!

Preparing Employees for Leaving with Skilful Exit Interviews

The LAB (Language and Behaviour Profile) is a tried and tested methodology that will increase options developed in Canada by Shelle Rose Charvet based on Rodger Bailey's work. By listening out for the individual's language noticing how the person expresses themselves, the consultant learns what motives the employee or not and can feed back to the individual what is the best way forward. The client can learn how to influence and motivate staff ethically.

Particularly in today’s economic climate where companies are being asked to downsize, make cuts, loose jobs - NLP and with it the LAB (Language and Behaviour Profile) Is used to help companies and individuals to become more effective and confident with their decisions. It is an affective way of selecting the “right people” to leave, then ensuring that an appropriate exit interview is carried out. This means that that the person earmarked for redundancy understands why they are going and that the remaining staff don’t “jump ship” because they feel threatened, as they do not understand the selection criteria.

What does the existing team and the company needs to achieve? The skilled consultant drills down with our face to face profiling to be clear about what strengths are there or not and what the company needs to retain. There may be people in the team who have strengths in one area and not in others. Once all of this becomes clear, thanks to the profiling, steps can be taken to remedy situations and options offered to those who are selected for redundancy. Some of these steps can be provided by the profiler, others will be recommendations.

Specific aspects of work are profiled and based on the client’s language and behaviour (indicated by that language) the root of the issue is determine. A report is provided and advice given on how to explain the staff members you want to keep why work will work for them.

Based on the information gained the consultant can then, together with your HR staff explain to the person who will be leaving why they are leaving and give them guidance in respect of what might be open to them in the future.
All of the above is based on skilled questioning and many years of working with people to understand and influence them in words which work for each individual.

Like to know more? NLP Highland - LAB Profiling

Emails and Other Forms of Communication Killers

Mails or emails and text messages can be a nightmare or a minefield, whatever metaphor you choose to use here.

Emails are missing out emphasis, irony, humour, anything that is included in telephone and face to face conversations, they are also often written in abbreviated form and can be sent off in the heat of the moment and even worse……….. they are tantamount to worldwide publishing within seconds, one click of the mouse and your comments can be sent worldwide and if you continuously forward previous emails on, someone, somewhere might read something you didn’t want them to read.

And text messages well can u txt? And cn u read txts? And I don’t even know if I’ve missed out the right bits.

With texts and emails it’s also possible to send them to the wrong person, by clicking the wrong button!!!!! And think about what happens if you always leave the previous message in there, I once became privy to some information that was classified and I only knew because I printed the email out.

Some NLP thoughts on emails – emails can work really well for someone who is visual – in NLP terms that means someone who has a Visual Preference, they say things like “I see what you mean”, “show me …..”, I need to clarify my ideas”, "send me the document" or "please write it down and give it to me". Emails can also be a killer for them, because suddenly something jumps up on the screen and there it is in front of them in black and white, or colour and they can see it! What you say to them will not always hit home.

Now if someone has an Auditory Preference – so they like to talk, like to chat on the phone, ask you “to talk them through it”, say something ”rings a bell”, think you are or are not “singing from the same hymn sheet”, then an email will possibly have little or no effect on them.

People with a Kinesthetic Preference like to do or touch, so they would possibly rather have a letter they can touch on nice paper, or even like to go for walk with you and if they like taste and smell would rather chat over a coffee or breakfast. Mm emails not much good for them.

Other things to take into account, you have absolutely no idea what frame of mind your recipient is in when they receive the email or where they are (I recently sat next to a guy at a business dinner who was reading his emails during the after dinner speaker’s speech [a serious speech about transport]). If your recipient is the wrong frame of mind for receiving your email then you have a problem.
My tip if you want to say something important, earth shattering, vital – send a short email and ask can I ring you, can we meet and do that and then give them something in writing. Bad news by email is bad, very bad, unless you really want to annoy someone, or they generally ignore you anyway.

So think about what you write and how you phrase what you write. Are you really clear about what you write?

This week I had a email about someone who wrote “I am busy delivering” and someone who has a “condition”. So I took a deep breath and wrote – “Now I guess you are “delivering” training (unless you have become a midwife or a milkman?) and I’m sorry I have no idea what this “condition” is” – up shot we had a 45 minute telephone call in which all was explained to me and I mean all. I had a better understanding of why something had not happened and the other person remembered you can tell me all kinds of things and I will understand and I got some really useful business tips from the person with the vague and hastily written email.

NLP talks about how we shape our world, (you know we don’t live in reality? That we form our own idea of reality?). In doing this we delete, distort and generalise.

Alfred Korzybski - the founder of General Semantics found that language functions in the human nervous system as a map or blueprint of reality. Language is purely a symbolic system and therefore it’s never reality. To deal with the world we select information, interpret it in our way and use this information as our map to negotiate our way through life – to do this we use Distort, Delete and Generalise in the language that we use.

the co-developers of NLP (Richard Bandler and John Grinder) developed the Meta-Model chiefly from the work of Fritz Perls and Virginia Satir and used this in their book The Structure of Magic I. They developed 14 linguistic distinctions which are used to indicate how language shows ill-formedness (not saying what we really mean – using short cut language) from the way in which Perls and Satir “challenged” the Deletions, Distortions, and Generalisations and recover what we really mean when we speak or write something. After all the words are the tip of the iceberg in a conversation, or an email – but more about this next time, as I’m going to write about Wheelbarrows then.

Improving Teamworking

Particularly in today’s economic climate where companies are being asked to downsize, make cuts, loose jobs - there is the need for an effective methodology that has been tried and tested, and one that also gives options to ensure that there is the “right mix of people” for the job. Soft skills are sometimes hard to learn and often underestimated. Required job skills can be trained either on the job or in other ways. But personalities sometimes will just clash.

How can this be made easier? Is there a magic wand? In short there is no magic wand. Everything requires work which is sometimes a problem as human beings just don’t want to do the work themselves, it “should” be someone else. After all we all know “it’s their fault” and we are entirely blameless.

There are tools and techniques - the often misunderstood NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) is not just a trail of techniques to make you feel, something that neither is whiz bang nor is it hocus-pocus. It’s actually about language and skilful use of language and recognising the language that the people we want to influence use. By becoming skilled in recognising this language and using skilful questioning techniques we can facilitate a climate of understanding, easing stress and becoming the company to work for, not just because we pay well (it helps) or have good employee benefits, but also because we take time out to listen, and respond in an appropriate manner and carry the things through that we promise.

Add the Language and Behaviour Profile to NLP and you have “Words that Change Minds” and it might be your mind not theirs that changes.

Case Study
A company intends that within 2 years its staff will work from home. To prepare them for this interviews were carried out using both of the techniques mentioned above together. What happened?

In the first place the team leader discovered what they perhaps always knew they are too fast for the remainder of the team. Good in some respects, yet when explaining to the rest of the team what needed to done, the others were often still thinking about the first part of sentence A, whilst the team leader was on sentence D. What did they do, well the team leader learned a little more about themselves and how to slow down and deliver what needed to be said sometimes using language that was alien to them but right for their staff about prevention, avoid this or that, sometimes talking about the problems to be avoided rather than the benefits.

Another member of the team complained the team leader "doesn’t listen when I talk to them”. The profiling showed, the team leader prefers to see things, so the suggestion was made that team member put what they wanted to say either on a simple spreadsheet, or preferably on a PowerPoint slide with some neat graphics, printed it out and physically took it to the team leader and asked “May I show you this and talk you through it.” Did it work? Well the team leader emailed the consultant (people with a visual preference like emails) and wrote "I see you've been giving my team tips. Guess what it worked! I was more prepared to listen”.

A further team member is very good at getting work done, but more so than the team leader leaves the others behind, whilst they bulldoze on regardless, with no regard for the culture they are working in, or the culture they are living in. There are conclusions to draw from that, as the person is not really ideal in this environment.

The end result of the profiling was that each individual knows more about him- or herself and is given tips and recommendations on how to understand their own language and to alter it to influence others in an ethical and appropriate manner. It’s not necessary to change who you are, just to come a little closer to others and open up a new way of understanding what makes them tick, what’s really important to them.

Some of this management team, showed during the face to face interviews that they are not suited for working at home, they need to be with other people. They work best with others around them, not because they want to chat, they just need human company. (As do most people, if we wanted to be hermits we’d be living on faraway up a mountain).

This type of profiling requires skill and can be learned with some application, it’s always carried out face to face, as the practitioner needs the behaviours of the person to qualify the answers, as well as the skill to drill down into the interviewee’s criteria, as the first answer we give is often the one we think we "should" give and not necessarily the right one.

It’s cost effective and helps improve productivity and the working atmosphere.

Response-ability

You may remember I mentioned that word in my last blog. We are all response-able, that is able to respond. No one makes me do something – i.e. angry, upset, no one “tires you out” (as my mother used to say to me). It’s all our own reaction. We can chose to react or not, because we are thinking human beings.
Bu how? Perhaps you are asking how?

Well notice that you start to react to something and ask yourself "what do I want instead?" - when you've found that something you would like instead, a better reaction ( a good and useful state is what we call it in NLP), then first create a "space" - imagine a gap, a void between you and that thing, the other person, take a mental step back from the situation and BREATHE (how many times do you forget to breathe?).
Then see, hear or feel what you would like instead – a desert island, an empty beach, the sound of waves, a piece of music, a CD track you really like, feel calm, feel peaceful, feel happy instead.

Then notice what it takes for you to create or re-create that sight, that sound, that feeling – you might need to practise it several times (only perfect practice makes perfect by the way). then “anchor” this sight, sound or feeling in some way – “anchor” means fix it, so that you can recall it at any time, anchor for example whilst you are thinking about this sight, sound or feeling press your index finger and thumb on one hand together, or pinch one earlobe. Then when something that in the past “stressed you out” happens press your finger and thumb together or pinch your earlobe to re-create this relaxed, happier, useful state.


I promise you, that if you practise, and when you do something about your reaction you can change the way you react and those things from the past will seem different and life will become easier.

There is one problem with NLP you have to actually do something about making the change – no one can do it for you (otherwise you are just a zombie) – you have to want to make the change, and then just do it!
It is that simple – see my blog Positive About Cancer for how changing your reaction can help. Taking response-ability.

It's all very well having values.

What if our values aren’t being met? What if we bumble along, muttering this isn’t working? That isn’t working.

Well the secret is and most people miss this you have to do something about this yourself. NLP teaches response-ability – that means I am able to respond, notice those emotions (we sometimes confuse these with feelings – feelings are really sensations like pain, heat, cold) which come up and react in a way that is useful for us.

It is possible to be friends with someone who has a value or two you don’t necessarily agree with. Be aware, be very, very aware that these friends will then sometimes do things that baffle you, that you could get upset about (but being response-able means we have a choice – to get annoyed or not).

We all have espoused values – you know the “do as I say and not as I do” type of thing, sometimes known as blind spots.

To identify a Blind Spot we can ask the questions:

1. What do I project onto others?
2. What traits do I deny in myself?
3. What do others do that is a ‘big deal’ to me?
4. What pushes my buttons?
5. What really annoys me?
6. What promises do I make to myself which I find hard to keep?
7. What uncomfortable patterns keep repeating in my life?
8. What do I need to come to terms with in me (like it or not!) which would facilitate my personal development?


The answers can help identify where we have a values conflict, where we put up with things, because we like to live in a society, a world where it’s always someone else’s fault. It’s easier to blame “them”, “her”, “him” “it”, all those sweeping generalisations that we use to make us feel better, ho hum.

There’s a great deal in terms of NLP that we can use to work on these conflicts, and you need someone skilled to help you, or to do this under supervision on course. In fact – advertising slot here – we have a nice little course coming up in Inverness in October “Using NLP to Cope with Change” (come and join us for the weekend).

But here’s a first thought – what is your life purpose? What do you want to do with your life? What kind of a person do you want to be?

Here’s a little technique taught to me by my mentor John Seymour – it works even better if you get a friend to do it with you.

Clarifying Core Values and Life Purpose

1. Think about three times when your life has been most on track or ‘on purpose’.

2. For the first peak experience, - “What was important to you about X?” to elicit write them down at least two core values. Repeat with each of the other positive reference experiences until you have a list of five or six core values.

3. Which are the three most important core values of these - circle them. Rank the most important three core values - which one would you give up most easily, this becomes number 3. Next most easily? This becomes 2. And the remaining core value is the number 1 core value.

1.
2.
3.

4. Now, having identified and prioritised core values, - have a first attempt at a Life Purpose statement. This is a one liner, not an essay. Guess if you are not sure. This is not the only chance - Life Purpose evolves gradually over time. If you are struggling use the “as-if” frame and guess. The important thing is to make a start. (Life Purpose will evolve as you evolve.)

A useful frame that often helps is - what obituary would you like ideally to have written about you!

Also, as well as the Life Purpose statement, check that you have some evidence procedures - how will you know when you are realising your life purpose?

Useful hints
Any time you have a hard time making a decision, check you are in a resourceful state, pull out your Life Purpose (kept on a real or imaginary card in your pocket) and you will find the decision is suddenly much easier to make!
Setting outcomes weekly, monthly and annually will help you keep your daily outcomes aligned with your Life Purpose.


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