How to start a meeting

By default  

The typical opening of a meeting tells you that things are going to start but haven’t really started yet. It pulls participants’ attention to the stage because that’s where it is all going to happen. Participants expect this ritual to take place; you cannot very well start immediately with the first speaker. People need to be welcomed and pulled in.  

From this perspective, it makes sense to produce the opening as a show - a powerful, beautiful, and evocative way of attracting attention, with high profile people adding lustre. Their presence conveys a feeling to the participants that the meeting is important (and, therefore, they are, too).  At the same time, the opening is non-committal. Very little happens that relates to content.  If it does, it is hardly ever an action by the participants. As a result, attendees have not become true participants yet. They are spectators.  

What you're missing  

The default opening says little about the way the organiser wants the participants to relate to the meeting’s content, to its outcomes and to each other.  

That is a missed opportunity. Every meeting has conventions - tacit agreements about expected behaviour by the participants. These conventions are inevitably established at the start of the meeting, probably in its first five minutes. So, any message – direct or indirect – about useful behaviours in the meeting should be conveyed now, at the start. If it doesn’t happen during the opening, it is too late.  

The opening normally does include various pointers, but these tend to be about the programme order (topics and speakers), logistics (breaks, coffee areas, toilets), the content and opportunities to do something with it (Q&A), and other activities (a trade show or attention for sponsors).  

What about some of the beautiful openings, with performing artists and impactful videos? Don’t they create an emotional appeal for participants? They certainly do and that is a good thing. However, these productions appeal to participants in a general manner. What is missing is a targeted appeal that tells participants what you expect from them to make the programme a success.  

By design   

 

At some point, you should establish what participant behaviour you consider useful to get the best outcomes. Write down how participants should relate to the content, the input from experts, each other, and the organisers. It should guide their overall attitude during the event. Should they be mutually cooperative? Critical? Creative? Reticent? Respectful?  

Use the opening of the meeting to instil that behaviour by making participants feel that it is part of the conventions. The easiest way to make that happen is to have the highest person in rank and status - the leader – demonstrating that behaviour on stage in front of everyone. By doing so, the convention will make its way into the minds of the participants.  

Often you will hear someone making a verbal appeal to participants, expecting that that will get them into the desired behavioural mode. This is rarely effective. Just calling upon people does not create a convention. At most, it can strengthen one that is already in place. People show the behaviour that they perceive as appropriate under a given set of circumstances. A whole series of subtle signals will contribute to that perception. A verbal appeal is one of the most obvious but often the least effective.  

The next level  

To have the best possible impact, the experience offered by the opening should affect the participants emotionally and should target their relationship to the topic, the content. It needs to address why the event should be important to them. It does not necessarily need to do so by saying it out loud. All kinds of communications can help to deliver that message.  

Differently from a spectacular opening with a generic emotional appeal, the appeal should be as specific as possible.  

How do you that? The opening should contain pointers, signals, stimuli that make the participants understand how they should relate. For instance, if you want participants to be active, then they should be mobilized in the first 5 minutes. It goes without saying that there is an enormous variety in the attitudes and behaviours you may wish to kindle, as well as in the types of experiences that will make that happen.  

If you have an external producer of the experience, organiser and designer together need to guide them on the right path. A standard concept hardly ever works; participants should feel the connection with them and their world in their bones. That way the opening can become an irresistible guideline in the literal sense of the word: a line of thought, expressed by actions, that guides them in the right direction.   

Eager to get going?  

Then send an e-mail to [email protected] with your contact details. MindMeeting will make sure you can pre-order the book and receive an invitation to one of the book launches, later this year.