A typical meeting has plenty of ideas in it. What it usually lacks is someone to give those ideas a shape. These cliff notes give you the 5 lines to use from the opening to the close, what to say when someone hijacks the meeting, and a plan for your next one.
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Six pages for the meetings that drift, circle or end without anyone being sure what was agreed. Keep it open before your next one.
Steven Rogelberg at UNC Charlotte studies meetings. Looking at the research on whether groups solve problems better together than apart, he finds the boost you'd expect from putting capable people in a room fails to show up 85 to 90% of the time.
In a study of 699 people by Anita Williams Woolley and colleagues, the group's average IQ didn't significantly predict how well it performed. How evenly people took turns talking did, and groups where one person dominated did worse. Structure decides whether the ideas in the room turn into a decision.
The person who shapes the conversation has more influence than the person with the best point in it.
Episode 336 walks through the 5 lines, the research behind them, what to say when someone hijacks a meeting, and the landing gear phrase, in about 22 minutes.
Listen to Episode 336
