Professional Development 101: Six ideas for awesome meetings

t’s not enough to offer quasi-coffee flavored water and stale bagels, followed by a two hour lecture on why effective lessons do not consist of lectures. The same can be said for similar meetings or the climate of an organization led by someone disconnecting prior knowledge and experience from the active process of learning and producing. Regarding leadership and Emotional Intelligence (EQ), motivation and empathy correlate directly with reaching others and working with people via the ability to relate to their own needs and experiences. Authors, Osterman and Kottkamp’s explanation of how reflective practice welcomes these elements from ourselves and marries them with experimental opportunities/strategies encourages leadership methods to focus on engagement more than dictation.

Consider these simple guidelines when planning your next meeting/workshop:

1 - Atmosphere; use your space well and remember curb appeal is not just for real estate. Get creative and make the most of your visual first impression. If the room is boring and resembles discomfort, the feeling will spread and soon folks will be turing to social media for venting rather than engagement.

2 - Refreshing perspectives and materials attached to common content and mandated information. Use color, music, video, humor, stand on your head ... whatever it takes to create an enduring means to meeting and exceeding your goals and objectives.

3 - Speak to, rather than at your audience. Get away from sounding like Charlie Brown's teacher and use your voice/tone as a tool for not only conveying a message, but for making the soul of that message sing, scream, and laugh it's way into a lasting impression.

4 - Mix up your presentation. If your PowerPoint has more than 10 slides per half hour and more than 150 words (in paragraph form) per slide, you've lost'em! Bring in video, charts, cartoons, ANYTHING other than wordy words of wordiness!

5 - Do not ... I have to say this boldly, DO NOT read from your presentation unless your audience is sitting Indian-style on a colorful rug and under the age of three. This is not 'circle time' and your slides should never serve as a teleprompter. Each slide should be used to guide, inspire, and prompt ... use index cards for remembering all the details and fill-ins.

6 - Have fun. Yes, fun! Enthusiasm is both critical and contagious. If your tone is flat, without affect or displaying the "I'm only doing this because I have to" attitude, your audience will know and your meeting and/or presentation will flop. Your vision will be blinded by negative feedback and whatever momentum you had hoped to gain will resemble refrigerated molasses.