FULL TRANSCRIPT

00:00 – Show Opening

Are you a professional who wants to become a more effective leader? Then get ready for daily tips from the coach with the experience and inspiration to help you succeed in any leadership situation. Your listening to the Meeting Leadership podcast with Gordon Sheppard.

00:28 – Podcast starts here!

Welcome to another episode of the Meeting Leadership podcast where we help professionals just like you get the practical tips that you need to learn how to build your leadership skills and also to get some strategies to learn how to run outstanding meetings, because you can’t be a great leader without running a great meeting. You can’t have a great meeting without being a great leader and this is the podcast that’s going to help you to do both.

00:52 – Inspiration is at the heart of leadership

And I have to tell you that this episode is one of my favorite episodes to record because it really gets to what I’m going to say is the heart of leadership because today we’re going to get into three inspiring questions to answer before you book a meeting room. And think about that from a leadership perspective for just a second. So often when we think about inspiration, we’re thinking about what climbing the mountain, running the marathon, this kind of thing. But I really do think that before you book a meeting room, you can imagine what’s in there already. I mean, is there papers lying around? Are there the chairs all sort of disheveled or broken? This kind of thing. That’s absolutely not going to set the right stage for your team to perform at their best. And with that in mind, let me jump right into the first question, which is this.

01:35 – Question 1 – What do we want to see on the walls?

What do we want to see on the walls? Do you want to see inspiring quotes? Maybe some funny sayings. How about a beautiful photograph or some artwork, or maybe you even want to go as far as to put up a great picture of your entire meeting team. What I’m saying for you as the meeting leader when you’re getting ready to book a meeting room is what’s on the walls counts. It’s all part of your brand. It’s part of the whole experience that you want to bring to your entire team. And when your team sees how thoughtful you’ve been by putting up something that is sort of authentically appropriate for all of them, I really do think it will help you lead a more productive meeting. 

02:18 – Question 2 – Should we post our strategic mission, vision, and objectives on the wall as well?

And another great way to grow productivity, well that’s to ask this question. Should we post our strategic vision, mission and objectives up on the wall as well?

Because think about it, if you connect every meeting that you have directly to your vision, then you’re going to create massive alignment with your entire team. So the meeting room itself could become your ally if the vision is right there for everybody to refer to. And then when you get off track you can say, “Hey, you know, is talking about a cat video really going to help us achieve our vision?”

02:49 – Question 3 – Does this space support the unique culture of our organization?

And the final inspiring question I think you need to answer before you book the meeting room is does this space support the unique culture of our organization? And as a meeting leader, when you get the answer to this question right, you can create magic in your meetings. But when you get it wrong, when the room itself is out of order, when there are things lying around like I don’t know, paper cups or whatever got left behind, that’s what the team is going to take away from that. That’s the type of vibe you’re going to create before your meeting even begins. And I can’t say enough about making this type of investment. Get in there early, make the space as wonderful as possible, make it conducive to having outstanding meetings and then you’ll get outstanding results.

03:36 – Recap of 3 inspiring questions

And let me take a moment to recap the three inspiring questions to answer before you book a meeting room. Number one, what do we want to see on the walls? Number two, should we post our strategic vision, mission and objectives? And number three, does this space support the unique culture of our organization? And if you didn’t get a chance to write any of these ideas down, no problem. Everything’s going to be in the show notes for episode 70 and you can get that by going to meetingleadershipinc.com/70.

04:10 – More pre-meeting questions- MLP 052 – MLP 059 – MLP 066

And if you’ve been enjoying this episode, there are three other episodes on the podcast that will really help you get ready to book a meeting room and the most effective way possible. In episode 52, you’ll get 13 practical questions to answer before you book a meeting room. In episode 59 you’ll get nine people questions to answer before you book a meeting room, and in episode 66 you’ll get four spatial questions to answer before you book a meeting room. And I also want to let you know that this episode of the Meeting Leadership podcast is brought to you by the Meeting Leadership Academy. 

04:38 – Meeting Leadership Academy – https://meetingleadershipinc.com/academy

If you want great online solutions and live training options to help you and your team grow your leadership ability and become outstanding meeting leaders, we’ll then visit meetingleadershipinc.com/Academy to learn more. And as always, thank you so much for listening and we’ll see you tomorrow on the meeting leadership podcast.

05:07 – Podcast Outro

Thanks for listening to the Meeting Leadership podcast. Be sure to subscribe for more strategies to help you become an outstanding leader. And don’t forget to write and review so we can bring you fresh content every day. We’ll see you tomorrow. Right here on the Meeting Leadership podcast.