You're leading a meeting. Things look like they're moving right along. Then wham! Within a second, someone's taken off with the agenda and you're left scrambling to quickly get things back on track before all the meeting time is eaten up with tangential talk.

What's wrong with that picture? Nothing if you're the scene stealer; but everything if you're the one running the show. Start every meeting with one simple statement and you should be able to keep any session heading where you want it to go. A quick review of the basics will make this method even more effective.  

There are 5 types of discussion topics for most work meetings:

1. The FYI Topic: Information exchange down, up, sideways.
2. The Decision Topic: Whatever is discussed leads to a decision. Exactly what people are deciding on has to be stated up front.
3. The Problem Topic: The group focuses on finding a fix. Of course, they need to be clear what the actual problem is first.
4. The Approval Topic: You're looking for the “go-ahead” from one or more attendees at the meeting.
5. The Creative Topic: You're searching for ideas.

Assuming the meeting agenda has already been set, here's the simple rule: Always start with a purpose statement that's focused on the end you have in mind.

Here are some examples:

• "The purpose of today's meeting is to come to a decision on Item 1, figure out what we can do about Item 2, and get everyone's input for Items 3 and 4."  (Decision, Problem, Creative)
• "Today's meeting agenda has 2 items – the first is to tell you what came out of the senior staff meeting that's relevant to us and get your quick reaction to it, and the second is to decide what to do next about that." (FYI, Decision)
• "Today's meeting is about getting ideas out on the table for Project X and deciding the next steps." (Creative, Decision)
• "We're here today to present our proposal and get your approval for the next round of work." (Approval)

This way, if someone takes the meeting off topic, it's easy for the facilitator to refer to the meeting's stated purpose and get back on track quickly.

In the following weeks in the "Ending Meeting Madness" series we'll be covering the "before" and "after" for every meeting and how you can significantly increase your odds of meeting success, how to prevent having unprepared meeting participants, how to quiet people who are running their own agendas and taking over the show, how to keep your meetings focused and deliberate, and how to get people involved, especially when they're on the phone.

Denise Brouillette is the president of The Innovative Edge LLC and The Women's Edge in Leading.

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