How to Structure Meetings for Strategic Feedback

Last year the Wall Street Journal published A Manifesto to End Boring Meetings, insisting that keeping meetings smaller often leads to faster decisions and more engaged employees. I'll explain how we structure internal & external meetings for strategic feedback.

The reason we manage to keep client meetings under 15 minutes is by having a specific objective in mind and ensuring we stay on topic. A meeting facilitator is usually a good addition to the party to make sure all parties stay on agenda. Most of our internal & external client meetings require feedback which is why we follow these steps beforehand

1. Homework
All attendees should be sent the deck and should have read it. Place a tracker in your email and uploads, sync it to your device and automate reminders to the recipients. The strategic feedback is achieved when a meeting attendee has read through the deck, given it some thought and comes to the session with ideas.

2. Reference
When making your remarks or asking questions, cite the aforementioned deck but don't read through it. The attendees have already done their homework, at least the one's serious about the work they do. Strategic feedback relies on attendees having prior knowledge of the subject matter in order to add further value.

3. Questions
Get feedback by asking for it. Use "As you know" statements that reference from the slide deck. If you have a list of questions you want answering, have them prepared and the responses recorded. One of the best formats for questions is pointing out the problem, asking for the fix and the how. Keep everyone in line to prevent any rogue actions or tangents. The last thing your meeting needs is activism from within. Keep everyone busy on solving the problem and follow up by addressing attendees by name.

Stay in the driver's seat at all times and follow up with the attendees with a thank you note, and regular updates that reflect their feedback is being implemented.