Your Meetings. Time to Cut Out All That Crap!!
One of the easiest fixes we can all implement to better our negotiations and, quite frankly, our meetings generally, is the often forgotten and misunderstood ‘Agenda’.
The Weekly Walkaway highlights negotiation in its ‘good’, ‘bad’ and sometimes ‘downright ugly’ forms. Issue No. 67 (1st March 2024).
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This Week in your Weekly Walkaway
Your Meetings. Time to Cut Out All That Crap!!
Meetings and Agendas. What the F, I hear you spit at your screen. But wait.. Before you unsub, trust me.
Have I ever let you down?
One of the easiest fixes we can all implement to better our negotiations and, quite frankly, our meetings generally, is the often forgotten and misunderstood ‘Agenda’.
Summary:
“... the meeting agenda often goes unnoticed. However, when utilised correctly, meeting agendas greatly enhance negotiation by cutting out all that crap, fostering trust, and boosting collaboration. They provide structure, manage time, and cut out distractions, ensuring productive negotiations. Trust and rapport are built through transparent communication facilitated by agendas. Ultimately, agendas stimulate creativity and collaboration by laying the groundwork for meaningful discussions and innovative problem-solving.….”
Today we discuss how agenda’s:
Cut Out all the Crap
Build and Manage Trust
Stimulate Collaboration and Creativity
So read on. You might make a change in an upcoming negotiation that nets you a hell of a lot more value or you might even rethink your entire approach to team meetings in the office.
The Humble Agenda
Negotiation is a fundamental aspect of both personal and professional life. Fact.
Whether you're discussing a business deal, resolving conflicts, or navigating everyday interactions, effective negotiation skills are crucial.
One often overlooked tool in the negotiation process is the meeting agenda.
When used appropriately, meeting agendas significantly enhance the negotiation process, cutting out all that crap, fostering trust, understanding and collaboration between parties.
Cutting Out the Crap:
Yes, let's just cut out all the crap! It’s a negotiation, not a spontaneous, organic, discussion. There are other times for all that genuine human hugging connection stuff.
C’mon people. Negotiation is not like that. What fantasy world do you live in? If you don't have an agenda you’re gonna either talk crap or listen to crap and you will just waste everyone's time and lose a lot of money.
A well-crafted negotiation agenda serves as a roadmap for discussions, outlining key topics, variables and objectives.
By clearly defining the purpose of the meeting and the specific issues to be addressed, all involved can come prepared, ensuring that everyone is on the same page from the beginning.
This clarity minimises misunderstandings and helps to reduce all those moments;
“Oh damn, she’s off on another holiday story again, yawn!”
“God, when will we actually talk about something of value?”
“Can we just move on? We have been in a meeting about a meeting talking about the meeting for long enough!”
Time management is a critical aspect of effective negotiation, and meeting agendas play a crucial role in optimising time usage.
Control of time is power! And agendas provide a framework for managing that time.
It is this disciplined approach to time and topic management that instils a sense of accountability that drives progress.
We’ve all been in ‘those’ meetings.
Meetings where there are so many distractions; irrelevant discussions or tangents that detract from the objective of the meeting.
You might be to blame, just didn’t even know. Well now you do!
Time is a precious resource and inefficient meetings derail negotiations and lead to frustrations.
Use an agenda and streamline your discussions, allocate time effectively and stay on track throughout the whole meeting.
We’ve said it so often. “Negotiation is all about control”.
So, control your negotiations by using an agenda.
Get into the habit of using a disciplined approach to minimise unnecessary delays, ensure that all topics are clearly addressed, and maximise productivity.
A clear meeting agenda serves as a tool for cutting out that "crap" and keeping discussions focused on what truly matters.
By adhering to the agenda and steering conversations back to the predefined topics on the agenda, we can all avoid wasting time on irrelevant issues and maintain momentum towards reaching better negotiated outcomes.
Building and Managing Trust:
Because nothing says "I trust you" like sending over a predetermined list of topics to discuss.
I know, I know.. It seems illogical but much of negotiation is illogical.
There is still a place for building rapport through genuine conversation and endless blabber about what your kids had for breakfast or whether you had seen that cat photo on Insta/X/FB!
And we all know that trust is the cornerstone of successful Western Negotiations (The Kahvay Negotiation Compass), and transparent communication is key to building trust between parties.
By sharing meeting agendas in advance, you demonstrate your commitment to open and honest dialogue, fostering trust and rapport from the outset.
Hi Lousie,
Looking forward to meeting on Thursday. Please find below the topics we’d like to discuss.
Payment terms
Contract length
2025 fees
Volume rebates
Please feel free to add to the agenda,
Regards,
Giles,
If your counterpart doesn’t share the agenda with you, is overtly in control of ‘their’ agenda, doesn't allow you to add to the agenda or if agenda points are hidden then you can start the process for preparing for an Eastern Negotiation. It’s probably gonna get cold, hard and tough. This is not trust.. beware!
Sharing and adhering to an agenda signals respect for each other's time and priorities, further strengthening the foundation of trust upon which mutual Western Negotiations are built.
Trust and effective negotiation requires a deep understanding of the priorities and objectives of your counterpart but it also requires you to trust them with yours too..
Use the agenda to articulate your goals and concerns beforehand, providing valuable insights, preconditioning and positioning what really matters most to you and getting in reply what is important to them.
The shared agenda gives you the incredibly valuable opportunity of gaining this understanding early on in the negotiation process.
You can then use this to question them more deeply about their issues, allowing you to show real interest in ‘them’ and their needs and you have time to prepare your answers so you don't have those;
“Oh.. Ah.. !!... Hmmmm!! Moments.. Because let's be BoJo. Nothing says trust like a stumbling, bumbling fool.
By preparing your answers upfront to their expected questions you can also ‘control’.. Yes, there is that word again.. CONTROL.. What you ‘NEED’ them to understand.
This is all about clear and precise communication. Which in turn creates trust and confidence. All increasing the likelihood of you reaching satisfactory, valuable and mutual agreements.
And here is the KICKER. If your counterpart tries to add something to the agenda while you are negotiating you can be certain that this is either a very important issue for them and they have tried to sneak it in under the radar.. or, it's just a tactic to grab a bit of value off the top.. Then you are protected.
Use the agenda to manage their behaviour and possible underhand tactics.
“Ah, is this important to you?” “Ah, OK, the issue was not on agenda so we did not prepared for it. We need to return to our office and consider it. We will return next week with a proposal.”
Leave the room.. If in doubt.. Both feet out!
Either you will be called back to the table as its not that important or you’ll be outside and thanking your lucky stars you had an agenda. They were just about to manipulate you.
Stimulating Collaboration and Creativity:
I’ve had clients challenge me on this frequently. They believe that a structured meeting agenda stifles original thoughts.
They say; “why use a script” or they are sarcastic and say “who needs innovation when you have a perfectly good agenda to follow?”
The simple fact is that before we can be creative and collaborative we must first achieve the two headings above;
Cutting Out The Crap and;
Building Trust;
Effective negotiation is not merely about reaching agreements but also about finding innovative solutions that satisfy the interests of all parties involved. You already know how hard this is. You can not just walk into a meeting with un-knowns or even well-knowns and just start the process of co-creation. It just doesn't happen.
A well-structured meeting agenda allows you to anticipate the information you need to share and as we discussed above allows you to prepare better for what will be requested.
The shared agenda enables you to gather relevant data and insights in advance that will in turn enable you to begin the process of creativity.
This preparation not only enhances the quality of discussions but also fosters trust, as stated above, and a collaborative atmosphere where parties can work together to explore creative solutions and identify common ground, safely.
Meeting agendas provide a structured framework for collaborative problem-solving, encouraging everyone to think creatively and explore alternative options.
Use the agenda as leverage, as a springboard, for brainstorming and idea generation, you can unlock new possibilities and discover mutual outcomes that might otherwise remain unexplored.
The Weekly Walkaway is a reader-supported publication. For the price of one reasonably priced ☕️ per week, you can now show your support for our work.
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