{"id":1338,"date":"2013-03-07T04:06:31","date_gmt":"2013-03-07T09:06:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/facilitativeleadership.wordpress.com\/?p=1338"},"modified":"2026-04-21T14:01:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T18:01:11","slug":"chairing-meetings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mgrush.com\/blog\/chairing-meetings\/","title":{"rendered":"16 Valuable Tips and Considerations when Chairing Meetings"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Chairing meetings requires many of the skills to facilitate effectively<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Success begins with vision and meeting vision comes alive by articulating\u00a0the purpose, scope, and objectives in advance.\u00a0 Other considerations\u00a0that support successful facilitating or chairing rely heavily on\u00a0people skills such as:<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1339\" style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img wpfc-lazyload-disable=\"true\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1339\" class=\"wp-image-1339 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/mgrush.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/17-valuable-tips-and-essential-issues-for-e2809cchairinge2809d-successful-meetings-e1558138428968.png\" alt=\"16 Valuable Leadership Tips and Considerations when Chairing Meetings\" width=\"500\" height=\"354\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-1339\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span style=\"font-size: 18pt;\"><strong>Leadership when Chairing Meetings<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Ability to trust in the good nature of the human spirit, even in high-risk situations<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Accepting participants\u00a0for what they are and not what you wish they were<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Capacity to approach people for their present value rather than past performance<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Embracing human nature that does not require approval or recognition<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Willingness to treat everyone, even casual acquaintances, with common\u00a0courtesies and kindness<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4>Flexibility when Chairing Meetings<\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Effective leaders when chairing meetings also remain flexible.\u00a0 Ironically, the best-prepared and fully structured plans afford the most freedom and flexibility because they provide a backup plan if <i>ad hoc<\/i> or spontaneous discussions prove fruitless.\u00a0 As emphasized in other posts, communicating clearly is important to any leader, facilitator, or chair.\u00a0 Beware of participant biases and tendencies including:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Missing the context through\u00a0which a\u00a0claim\u00a0may be valid<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Overgeneralization that causes lost or misinterpreted meaning<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Presumptions that everyone is thinking what the subject matter expert\u00a0is thinking<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Primacy and recency effects\u2014whereby the first and final arguments carry more weight<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Use of terms that are unclear or ambiguous<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4>16 Tips When Chairing Meetings<\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Additionally, and specifically when chairing meetings,\u00a0as opposed to workshop facilitators, here are seventeen additional and valuable tips:<\/span><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Always know your deliverable is the same as the meeting objective and logically identical to starting with the end in mind.\u00a0 In the world of Lean Sigma, this is called \u201cright to left\u201d thinking.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Always strive to separate facts and evidence from beliefs and opinions.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Arrive first and prepare your physical space for optimal seating arrangements.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Clarify frequently so that everyone is offered an opportunity to question and challenge. They will find it easier to challenge you as chair, than the original speaker who may own the content.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Consider posting the deliverable visually on a large sheet of paper, and restate periodically to reinforce the purpose of the meeting.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Explain your role and aspiration to embrace the people and communication skills mentioned above.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Help manage conflict and do not simply ignore it. Some of the best ideas and strongest solutions result from getting conflict out in the open where everyone can understand.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Limit the size of the meeting by keeping representation between five and nine participants, known to be the \u201csweet spot\u201d for optimal decision-making. The Agile mindset calls this seven, plus or minus two.<\/span><br \/>\n<h4>Additionally . . .<\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Manage <i>housekeeping<\/i> (<em>administrivia<\/em>) such as bathroom locations and safety procedures during your <a href=\"https:\/\/mgrush.com\/blog\/meeting-introduction\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">introduction<\/a>.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Manage transitions carefully by reviewing a closed agenda step and clearly moving on to the next open agenda step.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Prepare, presell, and at the start of the meeting review the meeting purpose, scope, objectives, agenda, and estimated duration. Because\u00a0participants should\u00a0own the meeting output, they have a right to influence how the output is built.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Protect your participants but realize that it is not your job to reach down their throat and pull it out of them.\u00a0 As employees or associates, they have a fiduciary responsibility to speak up when they can offer value.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Remain impartial during arguments, or at least demonstrate the appearance of impartiality so that participants can arrive at their own conclusions.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Restrict discussion to agenda items or you will subject yourself to scope creep within the meeting, and risk not getting done on time.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Seek contributions from everyone but do not embarrass anyone by forcing them to speak.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Start on time and police and breaks carefully as well. Do not penalize participants who are on time by starting late.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Take breaks when necessary, likely more than traditional.\u00a0 A five-minute break every 40 minutes may be better than a fifteen-minute break every two hours.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000; font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>______<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Don\u2019t ruin your career by hosting <a href=\"https:\/\/mgrush.com\/blog\/bad-meetings\/\">bad meetings<\/a>. Sign up for a <a href=\"https:\/\/mgrush.com\/public-facilitation-training\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">workshop<\/a> or send this to someone who should. <em><a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20260106090117\/https:\/\/mgrush.com\/\">MGR<span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">USH<\/span><\/a><\/em> workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities every day during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chairing meetings requires many of the skills to facilitate effectively Success begins with vision and meeting vision comes alive by articulating\u00a0the purpose, scope, and objectives in advance.\u00a0 Other considerations\u00a0that support successful facilitating or chairing rely heavily on\u00a0people skills such as: Ability to trust in the good nature of the human spirit, even in high-risk situations [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1339,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_wp_convertkit_post_meta":{"form":"-1","landing_page":"","tag":"0","restrict_content":"0"},"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13289],"tags":[453190749,7885,453190799,453192128,208811033,67714808,453190750],"class_list":["post-1338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meeting-agendas","tag-chairing-meetings","tag-leadership","tag-leading-meetings","tag-meetings-that-get-results","tag-structured-facilitation","tag-structured-meetings","tag-tips-for-chairing-meetings"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.8 (Yoast SEO v27.8) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>16 Valuable Tips and Considerations when Chairing Meetings<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Facilitation skills apply to chairing meetings. 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