One way to ensure full and balanced participation in your meetings is to “cast the roles” that each participant plays during the meeting. Want to minimize the disruption of “agenda hijackers?” Assign specific roles for each participant. Want to maximize participation? Limit your meeting invitations to the people who have been cast to play a specific role in helping you to accomplish the purpose of your meeting.
In this video, I detail the roles and responsibilities for each of these “cast members:” Leader, Facilitator, Recorder, Timekeeper, Parking Lot Manager, Subject Matter Experts, Stakeholders, and Devil’s Advocate. In my experience I have found that when you help people to understand the role that they need to perform, you improve their performance.
Watch this 7 minute and 27 second video and let me know what you think. Do you have other roles to suggest? Have you tried this approach? If so, I invite you to add your comments below.
This is the second installment in my “Running Effective Meetings” series of podcasts. Follow this link to view the first installment. I invite you to subscribe to my – free – podcast at the iTunes store by following this link.
