If you want something to happen at a meeting, like a decision made or a resource allocated, then you have to do the requisite work before the meeting. Here are five strategies to increase your odds of getting what you need.
- Get crisp on exactly what you want
Write down, in detail, what you hope to achieve at this next meeting. Do you need… a decision to green-light your pilot project? At least $7 million in IT maintenance dollars for next year? Your department head to give a quote for a press release? An increase in headcount? A new deadline? Whatever it is, define it clearly and upfront.
If you have room for compromise, such as the ability to operate with a slightly lower budget, ponder that ahead of time so you don’t find yourself doing unexpected calculations in real-time. And if you don’t have room for compromise, be clear on that, too — committing to a project with fewer resources than you know you need is a recipe for failure.
And before you go any further… are you sure this meeting is the right place to get what you want? You could be confusing a briefing for a decision meeting, expecting a decision at a meeting where key decision makers won’t be present, or be seeking a decision from a source without authority to make it.
- Understand who needs to decide
Once you know what you want, you need to know who can give it to you.
How will the decision literally be made? Is there a vote? If so, what percentage of votes do you need? Sometimes we make the mistake of aiming for 100% consensus from decision makers when you only might need a simple majority. You don’t have to win over every single colleague, and instead can focus on influencing the right people.
If there isn’t a vote at the meeting, what other decision-making mechanism is there? Understanding who you need to persuade lays the groundwork for your next steps.
- Understand how the decision makers process information
Consider how each person you need to persuade likes to process information. Do they like slides? Research reports? Do they print things out to read over the weekend, or are they reading PDFs off their Remarkable tablet? Are they the type of person who likes to chat over a cup of coffee, or do they expect a formal pre-briefing with read-aheads?
If you don’t know them personally, talk to other colleagues who do, or check historical meeting minutes or project history to try to find out more. You might also seek advice from their administrative assistant or other current or former co-workers.
- Set up pre-meeting briefings
You have your list of who to influence and how they like to process information. Now it’s time to execute against this. Schedule meetings, create read-aheads in the appropriate formats (e.g., slide decks or a one-pager), and check in with your back channel about how decision makers are feeling and what, if anything, they need.
- Plan your in-meeting flow
It’s almost meeting time! Do you know what you’re going to say (if you have a speaking role at all)? Are there opportunities for others, particularly those in a position of influence, to say something positive about your request — and did you prep them ahead of time? You might even ask a colleague to bring up a specific question that you’re not sure others will be willing to ask, but that you want to be sure they hear the answer to.
Remember, the meeting itself is not the place to make a dramatic, persuasive extemporaneous speech to get what you want. Doing the hard work outside the meeting is the path to getting what you want out of it.
Marina Nitze, co-author of Hack Your Bureaucracy, is currently a partner at Layer Aleph, a crisis engineering firm that specializes in restoring complex software systems to service. Marina is also a fellow at New America’s New Practice Lab, where she works on improving America’s foster care system through the Resource Family Working Group and Child Welfare Playbook. Marina was the Chief Technology Officer of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs under President Obama, after serving as a Senior Advisor on technology in the Obama White House and as the first Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the U.S. Department of Education.
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