Meeting Roles

All meetings should have meeting roles which ensure that meeting is productive. Often these meeting roles are forgotten or maybe never even heard of. This is why most meetings suck so much. If you want your meeting to be good, you should review these meeting roles and ensure that all of these roles are filled.

You might wonder if there are every meetings that don’t need all these roles and I would say that some don’t have an audience, but all the rest are required. If someone is an overachiever they can play facilitator, timer, and note taker all at once, but be aware that it’s a lot if it’s a big meeting.

Facilitator - plans and runs the meeting. 

The facilitator is in charge of ensuring the success of the meeting

To fail: don’t plan, don’t invite the right people, invite the wrong people, don’t publish an agenda, don’t start on time, don’t state the agenda and purpose at the beginning of the meeting, don’t keep the meeting on time, don’t capture any minutes, don’t capture any action items, don’t capture proper action items, end the meeting late, don’t follow up with anyone on their action items, or don’t publish the minutes.

To succeed: The purpose of the meeting is met. Everyone leaves refreshed or at least confident that things are moving forward. People know their action items and what to do next.

Timer- times all the segments

To fail: Don’t time. Don’t notify the facilitator that the time has been met.

To succeed: Keep the meeting on time. Time each segment. Notify the facilitator. 

Note taker - takes notes, captures the action items, and adds things to the parking lot.

Notes are critical. If there are no notes, then its like the meeting didn’t happen.

To fail: Don’t take clean legible notes, don’t pay attention to the meeting.

To succeed: Take helpful notes and publish them

Participants - these are members of the meeting who actively participate in the meeting to ensure that its purpose comes to fruition

To fail: be late, don’t do your homework, don’t prepare for your segments, multi-task, try to keep the status quo, don’t question anything, don’t push for everyone to be excellent, talk over others, don’t be respectful, interrupt, go on tangents, be loud, don’t be an ally to a shy person, don’t accept innovations, don’t accept any action items that you should, leave early

To succeed: Be engaged as if you will be presenting an evaluation of each of the segments of the meeting, take responsibility for the outcome of the meeting. 

Audience - these are people who only view or listen to the meeting. They could also be reading the minutes later on.

Consider the audience

To fail: Attend meetings you don’t need to. Don’t pay attention to the meetings you do need to. 

To succeed: Learn what you need to to be successful.

If you fill these roles you are much more likely to have a great meeting. If you don’t you might have a great meeting but it will be by luck. Don’t depend on luck!

My next post is all about how to create an effective agenda.