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. You’re listening to the Meeting Leadership Podcast with Gordon Sheppard.

00:27 – Start Here – Podcast content starts here!

Gordon Sheppard Speaking

Welcome to another episode of the Meeting Leadership Podcast, where we give you practical tips and the inspiration that you need to build your leadership skills and learn how to have highly productive meetings. Now, in today’s show, we’re going to talk about a topic that really is useful when you have a really significant meeting and you’d like some outside help, because today we’re going to talk about seven tips to help you hire a professional meeting facilitator. Now, not only can a professional meeting facilitator help you make your meetings more productive and profitable, the facilitator can also serve as a role model for your current leaders so they can learn from all the good facilitation techniques that are brought in and then your leader will have them to keep after that event is over.

01:08 – Professional Meeting Facilitator Tip #1 – They should be enthusiastic and firm

And with that in mind, here’s tip number one. A professional facilitators attitude should be enthusiastic and firm. And let me speak from my own experience. Now certainly for me, if you knew me, the enthusiasm comes across right away. And I think whoever you hire, you’re going to hear that kind of in the tone of their voice. When it comes to being firm, I always like to say I’m not from the family. I’m an objective outsider and I’m going to be able to say the things that need to be said and that is absolutely what allows me to be firm in a given moment when I’m facilitating in a meeting.

01:41 – Professional Meeting Facilitator Tip #2 – They should be honest and transparent

Tip number two, they should be honest and transparent. And one of the best ways to do this with a professional facilitator is make sure they provide a solid contract that they can explain to you line by line.

01:52 – Professional Meeting Facilitator Tip #3 – They should help everyone express themselves

Tip number three, during the meeting, a professional facilitator should be able to help everyone fully express themselves. And while there may be a variety of ways to tackle this, I can tell you that I make sure that I shake hands with most people before the official start time of the meeting. That way I’ve developed a rapport, and that way when I go to call on them during the meeting, they’ve already made a connection with me.

02:15 – Professional Meeting Facilitator Tip #4 – They should help everyone to be heard

Step number four, they should make sure that everyone in the meeting is heard, including people who are usually quiet. And of course it takes all kinds of people to build a successful meeting. But making sure that the introverts in the room are heard is really, really important, especially because it’s not the main place where they want to get their information out usually. So a professional facilitator, again, you’ve made rapport with that person, but maybe you even took them sidebar at some point during a long meeting and you found out what their really good ideas are and then you make sure that those ideas are stated during the meeting itself.

02:48 – Professional Meeting Facilitator Tip #5 – They should help you connect the meeting to the strategy

Step number five, they should help you link what happens during the meeting to your organization’s big picture. And I can tell you from my perspective, I believe that every meeting that you’re in should be connected to your strategy. So I think it’s actually the responsibility of any professional facilitator to be aware of your strategy and make sure that all of the activity that happens during your important meeting is driving your strategic objectives forward.

03:12 – Professional Meeting Facilitator Tip #6 – They should be excellent time managers

Step number six, they should be excellent time managers. And while I think this goes without saying, a good professional facilitator will be able to sense the room. So if the break is supposed to be at 10:15, but the conversation needs to go to 10:20, they’re going to allow that to occur. They’re not going to be too sticky on where the second hand is on the clock itself.

03:32 – Professional Meeting Facilitator Tip #7 – They should be able to make people laugh and have fun

And finally, step number seven, they should be able to make people laugh and have fun. Now, I can tell you, I’ve got a bag of tricks in my back pocket whenever I’m in to facilitate a situation. For example, I’ve got some bad dad jokes like, “Hey, what the zero say to the eight? Nice belt.” Now, for the right crowd that can work and for the wrong crowd, that is an absolute disaster. And I wish I wasn’t speaking from experience. More often than not. If you can get rapport with the people in the room, you can actually find out things about them that they can share and everybody can enjoy themselves. For example, I have facilitated meetings with high level senior executives where we’re talking about very serious issues and large budgets, and suddenly we’re able to find out that someone in the room is actually a lead guitar player and nobody on the team knew that about that person. It’s the kind of thing that a professional facilitator can draw out, take advantage of, and really help that team to get stickier and enjoy each other’s time a whole lot more.

04:29 – Professional Meeting Facilitator Tips Recap

And let me take a moment to recap the seven tips to help you hire a professional meeting facilitator. Number one, they should be enthusiastic and firm. Number two, they should be honest. Number three, they should get everyone to express themselves. Number four, they should make sure that everyone is heard, including the introverts. Number five, help everyone in the meeting connect what they’re doing to the organization’s strategic plan. Number six, be excellent time managers. And number seven, make sure that everyone in the meeting gets to laugh and have fun. And overall, if you can make sure that you choose a professional facilitator who can pull these things off, it’s quite likely that your next meeting, your AGM, your team building event is going to be highly, highly productive.

05:15 – Meeting Leadership Academy – https://meetingleadershipinc.com/academy/

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. Let’s say you don’t want to bring in a professional facilitator, but you want to learn how to do it yourself? There are terrific live and online training options to help you do just that. Visit meetingleadershipinc.com/academy to learn more. And once again, thank you so much for listening and we’ll see you tomorrow on the Meeting Leadership Podcast.

05:39 – 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 rate and review so we can bring you fresh content every day. We’ll see you tomorrow, right here on the Meeting Leadership Podcast.