Meetings with Ease

Have More Effective Meetings for Your Organization

“Are you lonely? Tired of working on your own? Do you hate making decisions? Then hold a meeting! You can see people, draw fancy charts, feel important, impress your colleagues and drink Starbucks coffee and eat donuts. All on company time! Meetings. the practical alternative to work.”

– Office Cartoon Seen in a Client’s Break Room

Have you ever left a meeting only to ask yourself, “What did we accomplish?” You are not alone! Research indicates that less than 50% of all meetings are worth the time and effort (Robert B. Nelson and Peter Economy, Better Business Meetings, Burr Ridge, IL: Irwin Inc, 1995).  More often than not, they leave their participants with more to be desired.

But day after day, week after week, meetings all over the globe take place without achieving desired results. This leads to frustration with participants unwilling to make positive contributions and give insight at future meetings because they may feel that meetings are not a good use of their time.

Do These Meeting Challenges Sound Familiar?

• Not Finishing on Time. Instead, you want a meeting that begins on time, flows smoothly without being sidetracked and ends at the time given on the agenda, preventing participants from feeling resentful and unwilling to positively participate.

• Indecision & Inability to Gain Consensus. Instead, you want collaborate dialogue and decision making from participants.

• Over-Dominant & Silent Participants. Instead, you want every participant to feel involved, without feeling overshadowed and able to voice his/her insights.

• Not Dealing with the Issues at Hand. Instead, you want your meeting to not get sidetracked by other issues that are not relevant to the agenda.

• Low attendance from key personnel. Instead, you want it communicated that the meeting at hand is significant and worth attending. You want key players to be involved and provide input that can be beneficial to the meeting’s success.

• Not Following through on key items. Instead, you want well developed and written action plans that will allow follow through, thus the effectiveness of the meeting can be successfully measured

What You Really Want

• Problems are solved with the input and participation of all in attendance.

• Feedback is obtained on priorities and decisions are made as to where organizational resources should be devoted to.

• Decisions are made based on the consensus of the group.

• Team building is positively promoted.

Have More Effective Meetings!

Research shows that when a meeting agenda is properly developed and a facilitator is used, the success rate of a meeting significantly goes up.

Najera Consulting Group specializes in developing effective action oriented meeting and retreat agendas. We are sought out by non-profit organizations and corporations for our ability to mediate and facilitate the most difficult issues and problems facing their organizations.

When you book our services, we are out of the market and unavailable to anyone else. We are committed to you, to your meeting or retreat and to delivering the results you want. We plan logistics, prepare graphic materials and blueprint every detail that makes your meeting a winner for your organization.

Your investment includes all research, planning, overall meeting or retreat design, appropriate humor and visual aids. We are flexible to adapt to your changing needs.

Key Objectives of Meetings with Ease!

The primary objective of our Meeting with Ease! service is to provide your organization a meeting or retreat agenda that solidifies you as a team and helps you identify the barriers, actions, and resources you must address in order to succeed.

• Preparation of your meeting agenda that contributes to a better understanding of your meeting or retreat’s intentions, objectives and desired results.

• Facilitation of your meeting without the facilitator taking the reins.  Our facilitation process ensures your organization is in command.  Our objective is to get others to assume responsibility and take the lead to addressing your meeting goals.

Thinking of Having a Retreat for Your Organization?  No Worries!  Najera Consulting can Help With the Following:

• Development of your retreat “theme.” Your retreat theme needs to reflect the right voice. The theme is a call to action, requiring ongoing commitment at a personal and organizational level. More importantly the theme should challenge your team to define what outcomes it seeks to achieve.

• Designing a meeting agenda that consists of core content and team building exercises for all participants. We will accomplish this by: Conducting a pre-retreat client survey of key participants.

• Assisting you in the analysis, preparation and distribution of pre-retreat documents, surveys, and relevant reading material.

• Preparation and Distribution of the Minutes. We will document, type up and distribute the minutes (and additional notes) of your meeting or retreat to all participants within one week of the meeting.

We will facilitate your meeting or retreat any day of the week and at any time. We are also available to facilitate weekend retreats if required. We will insure a two-way interaction among meeting and retreat attendees and keep you focused on the agenda and outcomes.

Other Benefits of Meetings with Ease!

• The ease and comfort in knowing that your meeting/retreat preparation is handled. Let us do all of the legwork and handle the details. We will send out all communication to meeting and/or retreat participants and provide follow up to confirm attendance. We will work with you on locale details and handle food & beverage on your behalf.

• We act as a third party liaison with an unbiased view. We can be objective in facilitating your meeting, with no preconceived views of the organization to ensure that the topics at hand get discussed with open and honest insights from participants.

• More Free Time – No post meeting/retreat legwork. Focus on the positive results that transpired at your meeting and get to work immediately at the tasks at hand while we do all of the follow up work.

If you are interested in taking the next step and conducting more effective meetings and/or retreats, we invite you to contact us for a complimentary consultation to explore the challenges you may be facing and the results you’d like to see instead.

Click here to book a free consultation and we will also send you our free article entitled, “The 5 Step Guide to More Effective Meetings” We’d love to speak with you!

Warm Regards,

The Najera Consulting Group Team

[email protected]

Najera Consulting Group is located outside of Chicago, Illinois. Other services include: Strategies for Success (Business & Non-Profit), Speaking Services, and Professional Mastery Program.