Want a Better Business Meeting? Be More Prepared

by Nicole Fallon

Let's face it: Business meetings are boring. Nobody likes going to them, and you rarely accomplish everything you want to do in the allotted time. Even if you have a strict agenda, it's still unlikely that everyone will be focused — a recent survey by cloud-based presentation platform Prezi found that 46 percent of American workers admit to texting, checking email or social media, browsing the Web, or even falling asleep during a co-worker's presentation.

Why are business meetings so detested across the board? More often than not, it's the way the meeting is run. According to the Prezi survey, which was conducted in collaboration with the Harris Poll and business coach Carmine Gallo, 63 percent of presenters know that slideshow presentations — arguably the most common format for business meetings — can be ineffective and boring to their audience, and yet they continue to throw together slide decks and take a haphazard, unprepared approach when it's time to stand up and present.

"Part of the reason people aren't paying attention is related to presenters 'winging it' and not taking the time to make their content relevant for their audience," said Peter Arvai, CEO of Prezi. "Thinking through the presentation beforehand enables you to connect the dots and make sure the presentation is as succinct as possible."

"People who host meetings don't spend enough time up front preparing," added Larry Dorie, CEO of Web conferencing solutions provider RHUB Communications. "When you schedule the meeting and send the agenda, you have to provide a guideline of what people should contribute [and the desired] outcome. If people know what's expected of them when they come to a meeting, it'll be more productive."

Pre-meeting preparation also includes ensuring that your team agrees upon the ideas and topics to be discussed before anyone walks through the door. [5 Important Words to Say in Every Business Meeting]

"Collaborating in advance brings a spirit of cooperation to a meeting," Dorie said. "If people have spent time [beforehand] vetting ideas and needs, there's less contention in the meeting. It makes it more efficient."

But thoroughly preparing for a meeting is only half the battle. The other challenge lies in keeping people focused once the meeting begins.

"Meetings that are too long challenge people's ability to stay engaged," said Joel Levitt, president of management consulting firm Springfield Resources and author of "10 Minutes a Week to Great Meetings" (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013). "Straying too far from the agenda will cause attentions to wander. Exercise leadership by stopping people who repeat themselves, wander, talk about other things or are rude or disruptive."

Making your meeting more conversational by asking for feedback on subjects you know your audience cares about can also lead to better engagement, if you stay on-topic.

"People are programmed to engage, not only to listen," Arvai told Business News Daily. "An overly long data list and bullet point-heavy presentation will put an audience to sleep and will be hard for everyone to get through. Instead, create an overarching story and a few main points that back it up. Be attuned to your audience's responses and adjust your presentation accordingly."

When you decide to make changes or adjustments to your meeting strategies, Levitt advised observing the impact of those changes to learn what's working and what isn't so you can focus on the most effective tactics.

Business meetings are sometimes necessary, and following the above advice can certainly help make them more productive. But the right work environment and attitude may actually allow you to accomplish more by not having meetings at all.

"Meetings take up a lot of time, and many topics that might be discussed in a meeting could instead be handled with quick one-on-one conversations," said Zach Supalla, founder and CEO of open-source IoT toolkit Spark. "By creating a culture where people feel empowered to make their own decisions, you can dramatically reduce the overhead on the team and increase what you and your team can get done."

The 5 Most Prominent Management Trends of the 21st century

By  IBTimes Staff Reporter

Based on responses from the reputed faculty researchers, we take a look at five areas or trends which are emerging as the key influencers of business and management in the 21st century and are also likely to spawn a good share of research in the domain.

Globalization

 The melting of barriers among nations and their increasing interconnectedness, accelerated by technology, has led to a change in the world order that has had a profound impact on global business. The emergence of nations such as India and China has replaced the era of unquestioned dominance of the Western countries or any one particular region, paving the way for a flattened business arena where developments in one part of the other are certain to have a spiraling impact. Perhaps the best evidence of this is the recent financial crisis.

A recent 335-page study by the AACSB, the leading accreditation agency for business schools around the world, highlights the implications of this and asserts that rising expectations from business and society for graduates with global competencies, coupled with the increasing complexity and global connectedness of higher education, command the attention of business schools around the world.

Technology

 If the current wave of globalization has been the driving force behind the most far-reaching and powerful changes in business, then information technology has indisputably been the facilitator. Drawing attention to the fact that four out of the top five companies in Businessweek's annual list of most innovative companies are technology-driven businesses, Professor Teresa Amabile writes in Working Knowledge, Customers are courted and supply chains are managed via websites, social media, and email; marketing, manufacturing, and distribution processes are managed by sophisticated real-time information systems; colleagues working 12 time zones apart can see and hear each other as they work at their desks-or in airport lounges on opposite sides of the planet.

Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility

 For business to be sustainable, and even profitable, our planet has to be sustainable - this realization has hit businesses perhaps the hardest in recent times. HBS Dean Nitin Nohria feels that in the coming decade, we are likely to see a lot of focus directed towards applying management principles to solutions of complex social issues such as environmental sustainability, energy security, access to healthcare etc. This will also underline the need for increased interdisciplinary interaction and influence on business management.

One evidence of this growing engagement with issues of society and sustainability is the increase in number of companies who have intensified their CSR focus and the innovative ways in which they have engaged themselves, points out professor of marketing, Michael Norton. Shifting steadily from corporate philanthropy to more direct and effective engagement, companies have devised new models of extending a social footprint. Drawing attention to the Pepsi Refresh project, Norton has highlighted how the company encouraged users to submit projects with social impact-from cleaning up a river to saving animals-and allowed other users to vote on which projects Pepsi should fund.

The Study of Psychology

Speaking of interdisciplinary influences on business, the study of human psychology - probing into cognition, motivation, behavior and performance - has become a key pillar of organizational management. From employee management to customer satisfaction and social engagement, satisfaction of business objectives requires effective analysis of both individual and institutional psychology. A good amount of research is therefore likely to be focused on how psychological theory and research can be integrated into business academics and management practice; Professor Amabile feels that with more evolved tools and access to ever-growing information databases, managers will have the power to substantially improve both the practice of business and the welfare of society.

Business Ecosystems

 Professor Carlyss Y. Baldwin feels that one of the most notable trends in management has been the rise of business ecosystems - defined as groups of firms which together provide complex products and related services to meet end-to- end requirements of users across the value chain. The integration between media, technology and telecommunication firms would be an apt contemporary example.

This has important implications for management because innovation in business ecosystems has a character distinct from traditional, vertically integrated firms. Every organization in the ecosystem has to be aware of the bigger picture. As Professor Baldwin tells Working Knowledge, Innovation in ecosystems requires collective action to both invent and appraise, efficient, cross-organization knowledge flows, modular architectures, and good stewardship of legacy systems. It rests on multiple, complementary platforms.

The Difference Between Coaching and Mentoring

by Martin Webster

The Mentor Helps the Learner Discover their Wisdom

The aim of this short article is to provide clarity for those in a workplace developmental relationship such as mentoring.

That is, to understand the difference between coaching and mentoring. However, this is not straightforward since there is often much confusion of definitions between practitioners.

Let’s begin with a definition:

A mentor is a more experienced individual willing to share knowledge with someone less experienced in a relationship of mutual trust. – David Clutterbuck1

Mentoring is a partnership between two people and emphasises a mutuality of learning. However, mentoring is sometimes confused with coaching, teaching, or counselling.

The aim of this article is to describe mentoring from a European (Clutterbuck) point of view and compare this with other forms of development: coaching, teaching, and counselling.

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What’s the Difference Between Coaching and Mentoring?

The difference between coaching and mentoring isn’t clear-cut. A mentor may draw on a number of approaches: teaching, coaching, and counselling.

Indeed it can be argued that these areas often occupy the same developmental space. Nonetheless, one significant difference between mentoring and coaching and other forms of development is the relationship forged between two people.

Let’s have a closer look.

Coaching

The focus of coaching is usually task and performance. The role of a skills or performance coach is to give feedback on observed performance. Consequently, coaching usually happens at the workplace.

The coach is likely to set or suggest goals for the learner; measuring performance periodically as the learner develops new skills. This needs a good working relationship between learner and coach.

Teaching

The focus of teaching is to impart knowledge and information through instruction and explanation. And the goal for the student is usually to pass a test. Once again, learning has a one-way flow. However, unlike coaching the closeness of the relationship between teacher and student is often low.

Counselling

The counsellor uses listening and questioning to build self-awareness and self-confidence in the client. The goal is to help the person deal with something difficult. Once again learning is one-way and the closeness of the relationship low.

Mentoring

The role of the mentor is to build capability. The developmental mentor helps the learner discover their own wisdom by encouraging them to work towards career goals or develop self-reliance.

The Mentor Helps the Learner Discover their Wisdom.1

The mentoring relationship is off-line — that is, the mentor does not have authority over the mentee — and centres on the learner’s personal goals.

Because the relationship is mutually beneficial strong bonds are often forged. And these may outlast the lifetime of the mentoring relationship.

What Makes a Good Mentor?

Now that we have an understanding of the difference between coaching and mentoring let’s look at the attributes of a good mentor.

Mentoring involves primarily listening with empathy, sharing experience (usually mutually), professional friendship, developing insight through reflection, being a sounding board, encouraging. – David Clutterbuck

Good mentors provide the learner with the right kind of help and support. What’s more, experienced mentors adapt to the needs of the learner. As a result both mentor and mentee learn from one other and help each other’s development.

Finally, the mentor will keep the relationship off-line. What is said between mentor and learner is confidential and never shared with others except in very special circumstances.

To recap, the difference between coaching and mentoring is largely about focus — performance vis-à-vis building capability — and goal setting.

In mentoring the learner sets their own goals. Whereas the coach usually sets goals for the learner.