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 – Podcast content starts here!

Welcome to another episode of the Meeting Leadership Podcast. My name is Gordon Shepherd. It is really great to have you here today, and it’s really great because if you’re here, that means you’re the type of professional who wants to up their leadership game. They want to learn how to run outstanding meetings and you are trusting this podcast to do just that. I am really, really grateful that you’re taking time out of your valuable day to listen now.

On today’s show, you’re going to be getting the next installment in our five part series called How to Create an Effective Team Meeting Agenda. But before I jump right into the content for this episode, let me go back to kind of the theme that’s been running throughout the week as we help you learn about how to create a really outstanding agenda.

01:00 – The benefits of a great agenda

Now, at the beginning I said, every meeting that you’re in should be as exciting as your favorite Hollywood film. And while that’s been a tough sell throughout the week, what we can learn from great Hollywood movies is that they all start with a great script. And of course, every great meeting starts with a great agenda, and this is the same process that I’m recommending for you to help you create a great meeting agenda, because think of the benefits. If you write the agenda and then you have somebody else take a look at it, usually a colleague, not only are they going to be able to point out things like spelling errors and little grammatical errors, they’re also going to help you really clarify your ideas, things like how you want the meeting to flow, what are the big ideas that you want to get across, and what order do you want those ideas in? So I can’t say enough about taking the time to bring on somebody to actually edit your agendas before you send them out.

02:02 – Review of key concepts from previous parts in the series

Now let me take a moment to take you through a few of the key concepts that we covered this week. Yesterday in part three of How to Create an Effective Team Meeting Agenda, we introduced you to the E and the N in our agenda acronym, and in part two we explained the A and the G. Well, today we’re going to tackle the final two letters, the D and the A and all the great concepts that go along with them to really, really improve your agendas. 

02:29 – Free AGENDA download – https://meetingleadershipinc.com/71download 

And just in case you haven’t got it yet, there is a free download that explains the entire agenda acronym that you can get right now by going to meetingleadershipinc.com/71download. That’s meetingleadershipin​meetingleadershipinc.com/71download​​​c.com/71download, and hopefully you got a chance to print that out or you’ve got it up on your screen now because 

02:46 – The D is for ‘Decide Now’

I’m moving onto probably my favorite letter in the entire agenda acronym, and that is the D, and I call that Decide Now.

Now, most meetings, I hope, are to get things done. And when you put the words decide now by the key items that you have on your agenda, it is a prompt, it is a reminder. It is something that’s going to give you a guide about the type of meeting that you’re having, which hopefully is a decision making meeting. And of course there are all kinds of meetings, so this may not be necessary say in a blue sky meeting or we’re going to put all the ideas up on the board type of meeting, but really in most workplaces, what we’re trying to do when we meet is get things done. So please feel free, feel bold, put the words “decide now”, that way at the end of your discussion you can say, “Are we deciding on this issue?” And really, really avoid tabling. That is just a disaster for meetings when things carry over from one meeting to the next. 

03:52 – The A is for ‘Accountability Check-In”

So use this prompt to get things done, which leads us to the final A in the agenda acronym, which stands for the Accountability Check-in.

Now, hopefully again, you’re trying to get things done and you really want people to kind of stand up and say what they’re going to do. So here’s a simple technique for checking in for accountability, and then I’m going to tell you how to work this into your agendas. And here’s what I mean. At the end of every meeting that you have, leave a few minutes to ask this key question, “Given what we’ve talked about today, what are you going to do when you leave the room?” Then what you do is you have that person answer it and they say what they’re going to do and when they’re going to do it, and then you record it right on your agenda. Then the next time you meet, that action item will be right there in front of your entire meeting team for everyone to see. And hopefully, this is the kind of way that you can create real accountability.

04:40 – Recap of today’s episode

Now let me take a moment to recap what we’ve covered in today’s episode. We started out by saying you shouldn’t do your agendas on your own. Really, do what Hollywood writers do and make sure you work with an editor before it goes out, especially for an important agenda. And then we got onto the D and the A in the agenda acronym. D stands for Decide Now and the A stands for the Accountability Check-in. And I think that we can all agree that when you start to apply these little techniques to creating your agendas, they’re going to be something that people want to read and take action on.

05:15 – Free AGENDA download – https://meetingleadershipinc.com/71download

 And just as a reminder for this episode, don’t forget the free download that explains the agenda acronym and you can get that by going to meetingleadershipinc.com/71download.

05:27 – Remaining parts in the series – Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 5

You may also want to keep in mind that you’ve been listening to episode 74 in our five-part series. This series started in episode 71 where we covered sort of an introduction to the key concepts. In episode 72, we covered the A and the G in the agenda acronym. In episode 73, it was the E and the N. And then tomorrow in episode 75, we’re going to be talking about how to put it all together, and then because you’ve put so much effort into it, we’re going to help you learn how to market the agenda and really get people excited about it. And if you’ve gotten some real value from this five part series about how to improve your agendas, then check out our three-part series called How to be a Good Facilitator, and you can listen to part one of that series by going to meetingleadershipinc.com/44.

06:15 – Meeting Leadership Academy – https://meetingleadershipinc.com/academy

I also want to let you know that this episode of the Meeting Leadership Podcast is brought to you by the Meeting Leadership Academy. Now there you’re going to get great options for live training for you and your team, and you’re also going to be able to get access to online courses that have titles like How to be a Good Facilitator, How to Create an Effective Team Meeting Agenda, How to Connect Your Meetings to Your Strategy, and a whole lot more. Visit meetingleadershipinc.com/academy to learn all about it. And as always, thank you so much for listening, and we’ll see you tomorrow for part five of How to Create an Effective Team Meeting Agenda.

06:52 – 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.