Here, we call once again on our confident yet indifferent attitude, and we assume a role. Instead of the role of the entertaining critic, as with the presentation, we assume the role of the helpful expert. We can start with a statement like, “I just got pulled into this meeting and have had no time to prepare. Please apprise me of your goals for this session and the issues you are dealing with, and I will see how I can help.” By approaching this situation in this manner, we accomplish three particular things. First, we show our honesty, which should be appreciated by the other participants. Second, we appear cooperative and helpful, which we are, of course. Third, we buy some time while the attendees are summarizing their meeting goals and technology, to get organized in our thinking. While listening to them, we do some of the mental preparation not afforded to us before the meeting.

Then, we ask the chairperson if we could pose a few questions before starting the planned agenda. This is usually permitted, and here we establish our role as a questioner rather than an information provider. Based on these questions, we not only gain insight into the direct issues, we also get to find the dominators, participators, and passivists in the crowd. Now that we have built our bridges, we are perceived as a questioning expert. When our time to offer something arrives, if we have some ideas, we can offer them, but I personally prefer to continue the questioning. I like to say something like, “I believe I understand the issues to be … (whatever),” and proceed to ask more questions. After we have asked our questions, if a position is evident, we can state it, or we can simply be honest and say that we have gained a lot of understanding but have no position or solution to offer at this time. Now the meeting continues (or ends if we are last on the agenda), and we offer to digest what we have learned and respond to the attendees later, in a memo or at a subsequent meeting

Fundamentally, what we have done is gain understanding, participate, and provide whatever we could, given the lack of preparation time. If that is not good enough, then the powers that be should allow a more reasonable time to prepare. It gets right back to the fundamental idea that quality work requires time to do it. There is no substitute for a skilled communicator working under a reasonable schedule. When the schedule is compressed, quality gets squeezed out.

When the last item on an agenda has transpired, it’s time to go. If the agenda has reached completion, and the chairperson seems to be in a trance, lacking the motor skills to terminate the meeting, we terminate it. We just gather our materials, stand up, and say something like “Thanks for inviting me to your meeting. I have a lot of new information to take with me and digest,” and head for the door. This will generally precipitate a closure by the chairperson, or at least a motion in that direction. If we want to be polite, we can linger while the chairperson formally concludes the event. But in any case the end is near.

When the meeting has evolved into a kind of sluggish, nondirectional mass, despite being only partially through the agenda, the meeting is effectively over. The problem is that the chairperson will almost invariably try to keep the thing afloat just because there is an agenda to follow. The symptoms of this situation are evident in the behavior of the attendees. Dominators and participators transform into passivists, passivists fall asleep, and there is a general loss of energy and lack of interest in all echelons. Nobody is asking questions, and the chairperson is only hanging on because he or she thinks that it is the honorable thing to do. At this point, we need to take action lest we be consumed by this sluggish mass. We interrupt at the next opportunity by saying something like, “This is a lot of information to digest, and I, for one, need some time to digest it. I need to break away for a while, but I could return later if I am needed.”

This gives the chairperson the escape route he or she needs. The meeting can be adjourned until later, and the chairperson is not at fault; the crowd is simply saturated with all this fascinating information. Usually, the chairperson, having also perceived the demise of the event, will leap upon the opportunity to break away. If not, at least we can escape. If the chairperson is so naive as not to see what is going on, we need to be firm in our insistence to be excused. We will usually draw support from the crowd as well. But if the chairperson and some of the crowd want to continue, so be it. If we have to stay, its creative daydreaming time; we will not be bothered with interactions or questions from the sluggish crowd.

1. How strong a chairperson we have, whether or not he or she will be able to maintain control over the crowd or will allow interruptions from participants or outside influences such as telephone calls

2. Who the dominators or active participants will be—those who wish to be heard and seen and will strive to assert their positions strongly

3. Who the passivists or inactive participants will be—those who will just sit there with little or no desire to interact

4. Who the participators, or genuinely interested parties are—those who will participate, ask questions, and actually care about the answers (probably a minority)

Armed with an understanding of these dynamics and these participants, and the knowledge that we probably have many variations of these personalities as well as diverse motivations for being there (as discussed in Part II for presentation attendees), we are ready for the dynamics. Once we determine the strength of the chairperson, and pick out the dominators, passivists, and participators, we are ready to play this crowd like a banjo to get the tune we want to hear.

We then do a little preliminary bridge building, as the first few discussions are going on. By bridge building, I mean getting some liaisons going with other participants. At this point, we participate just a little bit, to gain these liaisons. For example, when a dominator is speaking, we will agree with a few of his or her points. Dominators are sometimes insecure at heart, and use their domineering styles to compensate. They also like to build empires, even in meetings, by finding kindred participants. By agreeing with a dominator, we can establish an ally for later use. Another example is when a participant or passivist is being hammered by a dominator, and we come to their rescue and support their points. This gains us another ally. We might build only a few or several of these bridges, as the situation permits, but we must always do this.

Then, when we are presenting our views, we use the bridges we built to escape from problems or to guide the direction of the meeting. Now this is gamesmanship and manipulation, and in general I prefer not to do it; rather, I prefer simply to be legitimate and straightforward. We can present our ideas and interact primarily with those who want to gain better understanding or who require our information for their own needs. In other words, we can deal mostly with legitimate participators. However, if we want a quick acknowledgment, we may fire a question like, “Don’t you agree?” to a passivist, especially one with whom we have a bridge. We will typically get a positive acknowledgment. If we are being harassed by a dominator, he or she usually will not be the one with whom we have a bridge, so that cuts down on the possibilities. We can always deal with this person directly, especially if our points are indeed correct. However, if we want a rest or wish to see some good sport, we can turn to a dominator with whom we have a bridge, and say something like, “Do you see my point?” Most dominators dearly love to engage other dominators in a battle of words, so once our dominator agrees with us and opposes the one who is bugging us, we just let them have at it for a while and take a break. Generally, they will tire one another out, and we can easily slip back in and continue, much to the relief of the crowd at large.

There are lots of other ways to build bridges and use them later, and we cannot possibly cover all of them. The point here is to observe people in action, decide what category they fall into, build some bridges, and use them to our advantage as the meeting continues. Once we start doing this, we rapidly become skilled at it, and it comes almost naturally. It’s not at all a difficult thing to do, as most of us are already doing it, but probably have not realized it fully. It makes the dynamics of a meeting a lot of fun, as we note the categories and test our bridge-building and using skills. We just have a good time with it.

At this point, if we want to get started and the group seems to be in chaos, there are a few tactics that work pretty well. One is simply to remind the chairperson that it’s time to get the show on the road, so to speak. This may or may not work. A similar but stronger approach is to say to the chairperson something like, “Well, if we aren’t going to start for a while, I think I will go make a few telephone calls.” This can have the effect of worrying the chairperson that the crowd is going to drift away, thus motivating a call to order. Another approach is to blink the lights on and off a couple of times to indicate that something is getting ready to happen. This also may or may not work, because some in the crowd may simply perceive this as an electrical problem. The best way is to put one of our charts on the viewer or start passing out some of our handouts, and begin discussing the material with someone. This usually works extremely well. Typically, it will draw a crowd because it looks like the meeting is getting started, but not under the chairperson’s control. This usually motivates the chairperson to take over, lest control of the meeting be taken away. If not, we just continue with our material until we get the whole room involved, and make it our meeting. It usually will not come to this, however, because most people do not like having their meetings taken over, and the chairperson invariably will negotiate a transition from whatever we are doing into the actual meeting. At that point, we are finally getting someplace.

However, there are a few more aspects to participating in a meeting beyond simply being there and executing our portion. These aspects are starting, interacting, and finishing.

Let’s just think about this for a minute. If we have no time to plan or prepare, yet we are required to participate in a meeting, then what are we to the others in the meeting? We are an unexpected event, that’s what. Hence, we actually get to be part of the entertainment, not just observe it. This being the case, our attitude is actually elevated. We can look forward to being part of the show and providing the others with an unexpected event to deal with. So our attitude is intact. We will simply go into that meeting and be ourselves. We just do our best with what we have to work with. Additionally, we can ask silly questions, present off-the-wall ideas, and basically just enjoy being a wild card to which others must decide how to react (and if they have read this little book they will enjoy it too). Therefore, our attitude is sound and intact. Zero planning only improves the entertainment value. It is absolutely nothing to get worried about, and our attitude remains constant and confident.

In summary, we have seen that acquiring the right attitude for a meeting involves many of the same principles as other forms of communication. Physical preparation concentrating on the environment, along with the planning that precedes it, gives us a sound foundation. Mental preparation, based on the confidence wrought by planning and physical preparation, gives us the correct, confident, indifferent attitude. Preparing for the unexpected centers on treating the whole notion of a chaotic meeting as what it is—entertainment. Next, we look at how that entertainment value, along with all the other events, comes together in the dynamics of the meeting itself.

Because we have done our planning, have the proper materials at hand, and have prepared and anticipated the environment, we are pretty confident of our ability to participate. Furthermore, because we have this attitude of confident indifference to the meeting outcomes, unanticipated events take on a new role. Let’s analyze this. Unexpected events will only affect meeting outcomes (which do not matter) and we have our part of the activity well planned and prepared. Therefore, we are comfortable and participating in an activity whose outcomes are unimportant. Now, what is a good definition for an activity in which we are comfortable and whose outcome is relatively unimportant? Entertainment! And that’s the key to handling unanticipated events: just treat them as entertainment, because that is precisely what they are.

We know that unexpected events will occur and that they will be entertaining. So we are ready for them. We don’t know what they will be, and we don’t care. Let them come about and entertain us, and we will deal with them when they do. It’s as simple as that.

Physical preparation is pretty much the same as that for a document or a presentation. If we have used the scripting techniques in our planning stages, preparing the physical material is essentially the same as discussed earlier for documents and presentations. The real issue in physical preparation for a meeting is not the materials, but the environment—what will be the logistics and choreography of the meeting room, and how we can best use this to our advantage. Earlier, I commented several times about the meeting being essentially a less-controllable situation than the document or the presentation. However, the environment is often an exception to this rule. We may actually have more familiarity with the physical space than for a document or presentation because it will often be the local conference room.

The first thing to do is pay a visit to the meeting room, ask ourselves a few questions, and do some thinking. Where will the chairperson sit? Where will we and the other participants sit? Where can the interruptions, such as doors and telephones, come from? How do we want to address the participants—sitting, standing, or moving to the front of the room? How shall we distribute materials—all at once or as they are addressed? Basically, we need to determine, based on our knowledge of what is supposed to transpire, how we shall physically fit into the event. If we want to be noticed and have strong issues to address, we would be better off seated close to the point of attention, which is usually the chairperson or the projection screen (if charts will be shown). If we want to disappear into the crowd, we would be better off somewhere in the middle of the rest of the folks. If we want to escape early, we need to be close to an exit, and oblique to the gazing direction of the chairperson. There is no magic rule for all of this, and we cannot describe and resolve all possible instances in a book of any size, much less in a little book. The essence is simply to prepare and anticipate how and where we want to fit in. Think of it as a play to be choreographed, with due allowance for the unexpected, as I shall discuss later in this chapter.

Mental preparation for a meeting is very similar to that for a presentation: we care a lot about the material, less about the participants, and very little about the outcomes. We want our handouts, charts, or discussions to be polished and professional, and that is why we prepare them as we would for a document or a more formal presentation. But it’s just not a good idea to get all excited over the anticipated outcome of a meeting. We probably have to care a bit more about the participants than we would about the audience for a more formal presentation, because these participants may be mostly colleagues who will be interacting with us regularly. So we are at a bit of a disadvantage here because we cannot simply brush off the participants as we would most presentation audiences.

The key is not to worry about the outcomes of a meeting, and once again to look forward to the next actually enjoyable event in our lives. Now, for some people, meetings may actually be enjoyable. I have heard of such people, but, as with leprechauns and extraterrestrials, I have not had the pleasure of personally knowing any. For most of us, a meeting is like a visit to the dentist—a lot of pain, noise, and drilling. So why dwell on the discomfort? Just look ahead to your next enjoyable event. As with preparing for a presentation, this attitude will relax you.

Outcomes of meetings get too much attention, in my opinion. Just for fun, do a little experiment sometime. Pick a project or other activity that involves a series of meetings and do some analysis. Record the outcomes, which should be directions or conclusions of importance to the project, and keep track of what happens to them. What bearing do the outcomes have on the actual efficiency of the program or its products? If you think you will find a correlation, then you will be surprised. Directions are often ignored and conclusions are frequently overturned by other events (or the next meeting in the queue). If you actually do find a correlation among meeting results and project performance, by all means try to figure out how it happened and write your own little book about it; you will have discovered something unique and valuable.

Then, given that meeting outcomes are not such a big deal anyway, our mental preparation is easy. We simply review our material and assume an attitude of contented indifference. We are going to attend, participate, and offer our wares, but what actually happens in the meeting is not a big deal because its outcomes are likely to have a shorter life and less significance than that of a fruit fly. So we can just relax, get through the meeting, and enjoy the show—which brings us to the subject of unexpected turns of events.

First, we need to define our role in the meeting, just like we discussed earlier in this chapter. We may be able to avoid the meeting altogether if it is a support meeting or an excuse meeting, and that will be that. Second, if it is going to be an effective meeting, we may not be required to participate very substantially. If we are going to be merely a spectator or have a minor role, this will reduce the problem of planning considerably. Finally, given we have a role and we need to provide material and talk about it, we still have a means to succeed, as illustrated next.

Assuming we generally prepare our documents and charts according to the methods given in Parts I and II, we are in pretty good shape. All we need to do is plan what material to bring and how to relate the different materials to one another and to the topic or topics we are responsible for. This takes little time, and is essentially planning the flow using existing assets. Having done this, and having made a few quick notes, if time permits, we can hand-write flow-related comments on the material we will be handing out. Conversely, lacking such time, we can plan to make the flow work verbally, as we participate in the meeting. In fact, having the other participants mark their own copies of our material as we go along is a good way to keep them focused. So, in essence, the way to overcome a zero-time planning situation is to spend the time we have planning around what we already have. This is the simplifier and time-saver we need in such situations.

In summary, we have effective meetings and ineffective ones. Ideally, we qualify and attend only the effective ones. Realistically, we will probably have to attend many of the ineffective ones as well. For the meetings we have to attend, whether effective or not, our documentation and presentation principles from Parts I and II apply in varying forms. The key is maintaining the flow and planning for chaos. The U.S. Marines have a saying: “We don’t plan, we improvise!” Well, I think that’s a catchy phrase, but not altogether true. The Marines do plan, but they plan for the unexpected, so when the unexpected arrives, they can cope. We do the same for a meeting, and coping has a great deal to do with attitude. Next, we look at how to acquire the proper attitude for a meeting.

The main thing we need to understand about meetings is that the flow is difficult to manage. Obviously, if we go to a meeting and introduce a few topics, we must have a connection between those topics and some area or areas of interest, and we must provide reinforcement or substance behind those topics. So connection and reinforcement are as essential as ever, and are easy to achieve using the documentation or presentation techniques outlined in Parts I and II. However, flow is difficult to control. Even with a set agenda and a fairly dominant meeting chairperson, attendees will tend to get off on tangents. So we cannot count on being able to present or discuss a long string of topics with some preconceived flow properly relating them to one another. For example, let’s assume we outline how object recognition can enhance medical imaging, then talk about how neural networks can achieve object recognition, and finally discuss how our particular neural-network designs work. Our anticipated flow therefore has the following sequence:

1. How medical imaging is enhanced by object recognition

2. How neural networks can accomplish object recognition

3. How our neural networks work

Now that’s a good and logical flow, isn’t it? We start with the problem, introduce a technique to solve it, and then rationalize the technique. We flow from the need to the solution and detail the solution. But the problem is that good and logical things are usually incompatible with meetings. For example, maybe the chairperson has decided to let everyone talk about different ways to enhance imaging, then about methods to achieve the enhancements, and finally about how those methods work. Also, let’s assume that this chairperson is not opposed to sidetracks and excursions into other topics, and that outside interruptions will occur. Then, the sequence of events that will really transpire at the meeting is something like this:

1. Introductions and opening remarks

2. Ways to enhance medical imaging

   1. Somebody else’s method

   2. Anecdote about somebody’s aunt’s surgery

   3. Somebody else’s method

   4. How medical imaging is enhanced by object recognition (our first topic)

   5. Interruption by the boss

   6. Chairperson tells a joke (after the boss leaves)

   7. Somebody else’s method

3. Methods to achieve the enhancements

   1. Rationale for somebody else’s method

   2. Interruption by the boss’s boss, whose son, Junior, is the star of the local high school football team

   3. Discussion about last Friday’s football game, and how Junior spent most of the time on the bench (after the boss’s boss leaves)

   4. How neural networks can accomplish object recognition (our second topic)

   5. Rationale for somebody else’s method

   6. Speculation about how medical imaging will probably be used to diagnose the football player who got smashed in last Friday’s football game

   7. Rationale for somebody else’s method

4. How the methods work

   1. How somebody else’s technique works

   2. Complaint session about local network management

   3. How somebody else’s technique works

   4. How our neural networks work (our third and final topic)

   5. Interruption by someone who claims to be a boss, yet nobody recognizes this person

   6. Speculation about a hostile takeover by the person who claimed to be a boss (after this person leaves)

   7. How somebody else’s technique works

5. Meeting ends

You see the point here. If we have a flow across multiple topics, it is going to get pretty well shattered, scattered, or splattered in the actual meeting. So we simply plan for that. We plan our documents (handouts for the meeting), and any material we might show (such as charts) using the same methods discussed in Parts I and II for documents and briefings, with one major difference: we make all the charts and handouts (documents) short, easy to understand, and self-contained with strong links to our other topics. We plan our discussions accordingly. Then, despite the fact that they are addressed among many other topics and perhaps even reordered, our topics will make sense. In other words, our flow is replaced by reminders, within both our material and our planned talks, to make sure all the relationships among topics we want to achieve are intact and are executed. It’s a simple matter of adding enough reminder material to get the meeting’s participants back on our track (well, that train got back in here again, didn’t it?). Just think about what you would need in a handout, chart, or talk to be reminded of its predecessor, despite interruptions in between, and put that in the front end of the material. It works, and your material and discussions will have a cohesiveness that others’ will lack. Your topics will be remembered and so will you, which will make it more difficult for you to hide and avoid interruptions. But that’s the price of fame, I guess.