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. I just want to say honestly, it’s great to have you here. It’s great to be hanging out with people just like you who are on a journey to improve their leadership skills, to have highly effective meetings, and to make a real impact whether you’re going to work or whether you’re going to your volunteer setting, whatever you’re doing, that’s the kind of people I love hanging out with. So thank you so much for being here.

00:54 – POINT Overview – Prepare Your Idea, Optimize and deliver, Invite Feedback, Name the Hurdles and Solutions, Take Action

Today we’re going to finish off how to make an outstanding POINT when it’s your turn to speak during a meeting. Now here’s a quick recap of that acronym. Now the P in POINT, is to prepare your idea. The O in POINT is to optimize and deliver. And the I in POINT, is to invite feedback. And we covered those in the previous two episodes of the Meeting Leadership Podcast. Now today, we’re going to tackle the N and the T. The N is to name the hurdles and solutions, and the T is to take action. 

01:23 – FREE POINT Checklist PDF download Instructions – https://meetingleadershipinc.com/003download

If you haven’t done it yet, there is a free download that explains this POINT acronym and you can get it right away if you’d like. You can go to meetingleadershipinc.com/003download. That’s meetingleadershipinc.com/003download, or just go to the show notes for this episode and you can figure out how to download it there. And then you can follow along. You won’t need to get your pen and paper out right now. You can just use that to follow along and then you’ll be able to make a great point whenever it’s your turn to speak during a meeting.

01:55 – Name the Hurdles and Solutions – What’s going to stop us from doing this and how can we get this done? 

And now let’s get started. So you’ve just finished inviting feedback from your team, you’ve had a really great creative discussion and now it’s time to get down to brass tacks. It’s time to talk about how to get this idea done. And that brings us to the N in the POINT acronym. So basically we’re going to say here, what’s going to stop us from doing this and how can we get this done? And actually sometimes what I’ve done in this situation, I actually put a plus, minus up on the board. Or you can write this down on a sheet and quite literally for whatever’s just been said, you’re going to put the plus column, you fill it up, you fill out the minus column, and this’ll give you sort of a visual about how you’re actually going to achieve this moving forward. And you’ll also be able to see the barriers to achievement as well.

And one of the key, key things that happens in this moment during any discussion is to avoid passive aggressive behavior. When I say passive aggressive, sometimes there’s sort of some odd emotional connections that are happening where people hold back on the solution side specifically. People usually don’t have a problem talking about the barriers, but the solutions side, which some of them in the room, may have the ability to bring forward if they’re holding back, please take the effort to get to know each other, make the effort to create trust in the room and avoid passive aggressive behavior when it comes time to naming the hurdles and solutions to get your point to move forward.

03:16 – Take Action – What needs to be done, who’s going to do it and when is it due

And finally we’re onto the T in POINT, which basically means what needs to be done, who’s going to do it and when is it due. And one of the best things that you can do as a facilitator in this moment, given that you’ve just had this whole discussion and you’ve named the hurdles and solutions in this kind of thing, is you actually look around at each person on your team and you say, “Given what we just talked about, what are you going to do when you leave the room?” And then we’re going to hear from them something that’s really, really important during any meeting and that is a public declaration. Now we don’t need to hold those back for weddings and funerals, please. In the meeting, get them to say it out loud. And then the next important step that you can do to create accountability around this is to create what I’m going to call a shared agenda. Now when I say shared agenda, this means quite simply it’s going to be a document that everybody can edit or access. It could be in a Google shared document, it could be in a SharePoint document, wherever that is that your company holds information together. The important thing here about the shared document is especially for regular meetings, you’re putting all your ideas and everything that needs to be done into one place. And that means you’re going to avoid emailing in the future. You don’t just create like a Word document that sits on somebody’s computer that nobody can see. In the shared document, you encourage people to go in there and they’re going to see the things that they need to take action about. And then if that’s there the next week, you can refer to just one document and that’s how you’re going to be able to create real accountability.

04:46 – Get Inspired – Making a great POINT is good for everyone

And there you have it. Now you and your entire team will know how to make a great point when it’s your turn to speak during a meeting. Think about the impact of that. Think about how much more effective your meetings will be, and then when your meeting is more effective, think about the impact it’s going to have on your area and on your organization. And ultimately, that ability to make a succinct point when it’s your turn to speak will flow through to the impact that you have on your clients, your customers, and your community.

05:17 – Meeting Leadership Academy – https://meetingleadershipinc.com/academy

I also want to take a moment to let you know that this episode of the Meeting Leadership Podcast is brought to you by the Meeting Leadership Academy. If you want the best in live training, the best in online training and the best in professional speaking for your events, then check out meetingleadershipinc.com/academy to learn more.

05:36 – Shout Out! – Thanks to Alex Armstrong from Three Tall Women Design

And, of course, I always appreciate getting feedback and I will definitely read any of the feedback that you leave when you subscribe and leave comments on iTunes or on the blog itself. And here’s a comment that I got from Alex Armstrong, the owner of Three Tall Women Design. She says this, “Working with Gord has radically changed how I view my business, and these changes are all ready leading to new growth for my company.” Thanks Alex. And thanks to you for listening to another episode of the Meeting Leadership Podcast.

06:07 – 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 rate and review so we can bring you fresh content every day. We’ll see you tomorrow, right here on the Meeting Leadership Podcast.