Helping your talented staff gain visibility in meetings
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An ideal way to develop talented team members is to invite them to accompany you to meetings you generally attend. This can be for educational purposes or to raise their profile. So, what should you do to ensure this is a positive experience for them?
Firstly, consider which meetings would be useful for them to attend and why. What is the focus? Some meetings might be worth attending from an educational viewpoint; to see how decisions are arrived at, to learn about complex projects and how the organisation will manage them, to learn about other areas of your organisation that are less familiar. Other meetings may offer great opportunities for them to present initiatives or reports and, in so doing, allow them to raise their profile.
Having chosen a meeting, advise your team member of your choice and rationale and outline the key purpose and objectives you want them to achieve. Ensure they are comfortable with this – enough to overcome any nervousness or reservations at least.
If presenting…
Prepare them well. Discuss the meetings aims, agenda, the culture and personalities they’ll find in the room. If you want them to present a report or initiative, help them practice so you can both feel comfortable that they will make a positive impact. Ask difficult questions so they can practice dealing with them – though hopefully you’ve already briefed them with regard to stakeholder management and how to get supporters onboard early. If not, see our blog on stakeholder management – it’s well worth a read!
Encourage them to arrive early to the meeting to socialise and introduce themselves to others attending. There is research to suggest that such socialisation is important to building alliances, even getting decisions made before the formal meeting begins. The same research also suggests women are particularly bad at understanding the importance of this ‘bonding’ time, so encourage your team member to arrive some 10 minutes early.
Similarly, encourage them to stay behind – assuming others do – to ask for feedback on their presentation or report ‘off the record’ or to thank people for their support.
If you are not chairing the meeting brief the person who is about why you are inviting your team member to attend. Obtain their support and help so that good meeting etiquette is maintained. This will ensure your team member’s presentation receives everyone’s full attention.
During your team members presentation pay attention to the others in the room; are they listening, engaged, seemingly supportive, or restless, asking difficult even unnecessary questions that might throw your team member off-guard. Be prepared to step in, as necessary, to actively endorse what your team member is presenting without taking over the presentation yourself. Your role is to actively support them not overshadow them, so you might ask a questioner for clarification, or probe what concerns lie behind a question, allowing your team member to find their feet and gain a little time before answering the question themselves.
If attending to listen and learn…
Again, prepare them well, discuss the purpose of the meeting, its culture and history of achievement, personalities to watch and learn from and what they should be looking to gain from their attendance. Ensure they take notes and encourage them to observe effective meeting behaviours in others, as well as any technical learning they need to acquire. If they get to know other people in the meeting, who might even be some of your own stakeholders, this will be very beneficial, especially if you then want to delegate work that requires greater interaction with these same people.
Post-meeting
After the meeting, debrief your team member to find out what they learnt, what they thought worked well, what they would do differently next time. Encourage self-reflection over merely giving your opinion and encourage them, if appropriate, to seek feedback from other attendees. Fill in any gaps or misunderstandings and plan next steps – again, if applicable.
TAKE AWAY
Taking along talented team members to meetings you regularly attend is a great development tool – whether they present or listen and learn. Ensure you prepare them well, give them active but not overbearing support during the meeting, and debrief them thoroughly afterwards to maximise the learning.