Effective and creative meeting skills

As we all know, meetings hold a great promise: we might inspire each other to the best ideas and to the most creative solutions.

Yes, meetings hold this promise. What we also know: meetings are often useless, boring, expensive, with a sloppy discipline. How do we optimize the promise of a good meeting?

There are three separate fields.

First the “yoga” of meeting: doing all the practical things right: a proper agenda, clear agenda points, targets and timings, proper weighing of who should be there, clear roles, assertive leadership etc. This enables any meeting to be a useful, well-steered meeting.

Second: how to make people speak together openly and creatively to obtain innovative, wise, well-balanced solutions to problems. How do you balance each contribution, the group dynamics? How do you exchange free and non-discriminating while maintaining a good process of sequence and timing?

And third? And how can you use creativity in out-of-the-box methods and brainstorm?
This training addresses all of these issues in a playful, interactive way. All of the above competencies will be strengthened.

Objectives

Basics of meeting

• Acquire good habits with a number of simple, but necessary meeting techniques
• Know how to prepare a meeting
• Draw up a purposeful agenda and steer the meeting consequently
• Know how to follow up on the results of a meeting

Group dynamics and creative brainstorming

• Master the process of development of a meeting, guide the participants through it
• Know how to steer the group dynamics in order to form an opinion together
• Tips and techniques to let a meeting take place actively and creatively, while well-focused and disciplined.
• Know how to maintain a balance between product, procedures and people

A sample of irony around the habits of meetings – the best & worst of meeting experiences

• What is meeting? Which is its use? When to meet or not to meet?
• Categories of meetings – info, evaluation, discussion, decision, negotiation,…
• How to prepare a meeting – do’s and don’ts, draw up an agenda, informing participants
• Guide through the process of meeting, with the agenda in view
• Who meets? Roles and tasks, duties and rights of the participants, the president and the secretary
• Phases in a creative meeting: preparation, contact, exchange, discussion, agreement, decision
• How to run a problem-solving meeting with decision making: a challenge
• Decision-making techniques: majority, lottery, uniformity, authoritative
• Closing a meeting with action points and follow-up
• A choice menu:
  • Dealing with difficult behaviour during meetings
  • Creative meeting techniques: tease into action, playful brainstorming, pleasant ice-breakers, etc.
  • Interactive techniques during meetings
• Application on the workplace: angles
• Action plans of the participants for future meetings

Pedagogical approach

Participants can introduce their questions and cases, which can be integrated into the workshop. A discovery exercise familiarizes you with the challenge of proper meeting habits. A number of playful exercises lead you through several meetings skills (roles, preparation, agenda etc…).

In a discovery “opinion generating” meeting you analyze how the group dynamics works when thinking together towards a decision. You analyze the factors at play in such a process. A number of scripts for proper opinion-creating meetings will be presented as well as a basket of methods of brainstorming and playful exercises.

After the seminar a certificate of participation will be sent to participants.

Meet the Consultant, Mr Eric Schillemans

I have always been fascinated by man and their potential. Thus my trainings focus on meeting people, the discovery of deeper values and on personal development.

After my scientific studies at the University of Antwerpen I worked for several years as a teacher in secondary education. Thereafter I was a University assistant to train professors. For several years I devoted myself to international development aid, helping building schools in India and in the Ukraine. A wonderful period of my life!

For over ten years now I invest my passion into the profession of a trainer, consultant and coach in the world of business and in the public sector. In parallel, and for the last 30 years, I have been accompanying people in relaxation and the development of their own individual potential.

My references include Belgacom, Citroën, Direct Dialogue Fund, Dexia Invest Luxembourg, the European Social Fund, International Post Corporation, ITS Luxembourg, JC Décaux, Oxfam, the European Parliament, the City of Gent, the Belgian Railway Company, Toyota, UNICEF, and many others.