This cast concludes our guidance on how to give an update in a staff meeting.

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This cast gives our guidance on how to give an update in a staff meeting.

Over on Manager Tools, we recommend every manager have a weekly staff meeting. They are a key part of socializing a team. In these meetings, each direct gets ten minutes to brief the rest of the team on what they have going on.

What if you're the direct though? What are you supposed to say and how? Speaking in meetings is a key part of demonstrating your strengths, which in turn leads to promotions. It's important to get it right. So, what's right?

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This guidance describes why and how effective managers insist on their directs pre-wiring information they brief to you.

We were with an executive recently and were told a story about a fellow executive that reminded us that sometimes, the things that go without saying still need to be said. This is one of those topics where, when we heard the story of this principle being abused, we looked at each other and said, you're kidding, right? EVERYBODY knows THAT. Apparently not.

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This guidance describes how to prepare your boss for attending any meeting you're running.

Your boss getting surprised is a bad thing. Your boss getting surprised in front of his own directs is a VERY bad thing. Your boss getting surprised in front of her directs when you knew the topic was scheduled and would likely surprise her is intolerable. We're not big fans of anger here, but if you did that to US, we'd be upset.

Let's make it even worse, in two different ways. First, now it's not your boss that's got egg on her face, it's YOU. YOUR direct has scheduled a meeting, put a deliverable you have knowledge of on the agenda, and known there is a possibility that you will not have accomplished the objective. Even if you're not going to be visibly angry, can you honestly say that you would be happy about it? Differently: you walk out of a meeting where you've just done this to your boss, and he wasn't ready. One of your directs also was delinquent on some tasks. Even if you have the right rejoinder, isn't it something of a downer when the direct says, how hard can you get on ME when the big boss isn't doing his stuff EITHER?

Or, as we head a boss say once, after a meeting, to a direct: One phone call? A brief email? Neither of these or a hundred other small actions didn't occur to you to keep me from having to mea culpa in front of my directs? Thanks for nothing. Maybe that wasn't so professional, but it's surely heartfelt.

This is an easy mistake to cure. We suspect that there are thousands of managers listening right now thinking, I know all I need to know – I never thought about this before, but I know I'm never letting that fall through the cracks again. This will be the shortest cast they ever listen to.

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This cast helps you deal with meeting a member of the business who is two or more levels above you in the organization hierarchy.

One of the recommendations we make in Manager Tools is that every manager who has managers below them needs to periodically have a 'skip meeting'. That means she meets with not her directs, but their directs. That's all very well and beneficial for the manager, but it can be intimidating directs' directs. If you find yourself in that position, what can you do to give a good impression and not embarrass yourself?

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This cast tells you how to prepare for a meeting.

This is one of those casts in which posit such a simple action, that we almost hesitate to suggest it. But since the majority of your peers' preparation for a meeting consists of refilling their coffee cups, this simple action is one that can have a disproportionate influence on your career.

Too many meetings is a common complaint. In this case, it's a good thing, since you'll have lots of practice and get good really, really fast.

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This cast recommends what to do before, during and after any conference or training you attend.

Before we started Manager Tools conferences we produced a podcast with information about what to expect and how to get the most out of them. The cast was never released into the general feed though, so that information, whilst available, was potentially missing some of you who are not fortunate enough to be coming to Manager Tools conferences, but who are going to other training. So, we've updated the advice and are rereleasing it.

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This cast describes Career Tools' recommendations for how to attend a meeting when your boss asks you to go in his/her place.

Your boss asks you to go to a meeting. What do you do? You sort of have three options. You can ask a million questions. Okay, you have two options. You can do what most directs do and go and then wait for the boss to ask for a debrief. Or, you can do a couple of simple things which take about five minutes, and impress the stuffing out of your boss. Here's how to do THAT.

1. Before You Go, Ask Three Questions
   1. Am I Presenting and If So, How?
   2. Key Agenda Items
   3. Topics or Discussions To Watch Out For
2. During the Meeting, Stay Quiet and Take GOOD Notes
3. After the Meeting, Report Efficiently
   1. Capture And Send Your Notes From Where The Meeting Was
   2. Do NOT Send Minutes
   3. Think About Your Boss's Receiving Style
   4. Include Attendees and Non-Attendees
   5. Highlight Deliverables

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We're all in meetings all the time, right? So how come there's not an instruction manual? We all complain about them. But no one seems able or willing to do something about it. We will.

We shared - 3 years ago - our recommendations on how to RUN an Effective Meeting. What about our recommendations for how to behave when you're NOT running the meeting?

We have a series of recommendations, because meetings take up so much of our professional lives. In this cast, #5 in a series we'll build up over time, we talk about how to be a participant once the meeting gets started.

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This cast describes a way to prepare for meetings or presentations where you need to persuade.

You have a meeting coming up. Not only do you need to make a presentation, you need to make the presentation to your bosses boss. Perhaps you need to present to your bosses boss, but also all her directs at her next staff meeting. How do you prepare for that? How do you ensure that you don't walk across any land-mines during the presentation? What can you do NOW to make that presentation a slam-dunk?

Listen up ... in this members-only cast, with obvious links to our weekly podcast discussion on persuasion, we're going to show you!

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