When a client hires us to help manage an off-site meeting, we always ask the organizer the same two questions:
— What do you want to have debated, decided or discovered at the end of the session that you and your team haven’t dealt with before?
— What do you want attendees to say when their team members back at the office ask, “What happened at the big meeting?”
It doesn’t matter if it’s an eight-person board meeting, a 15-person executive team meeting or a 150-person leadership conference — your first step when planning an important corporate get-together should be to draft an initial set of goals based on the answers to those questions. The list needn’t be long. Three-to-five bullet points is more than enough.
Review these points with the other stakeholders in the meeting. Once everyone agrees, communicate to all other attendees that these objectives are locked in. This helps maintain focus.
Your list of objectives will drive important decisions about aspects of the meeting:
Agenda. Draft an agenda and map each activity to your stated goals. Do all the agenda items help you achieve one or more of your objectives? Are there any objectives that can’t be achieved through what you have planned?
Attendees. The number and identity of attendees should be based on the meeting’s scope. For example, if you need to make decisions, convene a smaller group. If your aim is to generate ideas or achieve broad organizational buy-in for an initiative, you should invite a larger group.
Pre-reads. Don’t overload people with material unrelated to your objectives. Use your list of goals to determine what you will and won’t send in advance.
Location. A meeting’s location should reflect the objectives too. For example, if your goals focus on a specific region, go there. If an objective is for everybody to get to know each other better, pick a venue designed for socializing.
Sharing objectives in this way ensures that everyone is “coming to the same meeting.”
(Bob Frisch is the managing partner, and Cary Greene a partner, at the Strategic Offsites Group, a Boston-based consultancy.)
