#4 - Running a meeting - Part 1 (Practical phrases and scripts for non-native English speaker working in Tech)
Cheatsheets for synchronous and asynchronous communication
Meetings, phone calls, and even casual face to face conversations used to scare me.
I'm not naturally good at coming up with words at moment's notice. In conversations, I am the default listener, and generally will avoid social situations to avoid the common pressure of "Ugh I guess I need to share something now? Say something, carry your weight in this conversation!".
I still prefer asynchronous communication where I can spend more time examining my thought, decide what I want to say, and craft my words well. But I've become more comfortable with synchronous communication after spending non trivial time and effort to get better at it, voluntarily and otherwise.
In this first part I will share some scripts and phrases you can use to set up and prepare for meetings.
I have collected and tracked these conversational frameworks and reference phrases somewhat loosely but probably still more compulsively than an average person. Hope this saves you time, let you focus more on solving real problems for your teams instead of spending your brain CPU cycle worrying about what when and how to say certain things.
My working outline for this series:
Managing Asynchronous Communication as a Non Native English Speaker & Running a meeting > Preparing > What and When
Running a meeting > During > Starting, Setting Context, and Presenting
Running a meeting > During > Moderating Discussions, Answering Questions, and Disagreeing
Running a meeting > During > Concluding & Thoughts on English Skills Being a Non Native English Speaker
Business Emails
Managing Up and Managing Down
Asking for Help, Delegating, Following up
Frames to Help You Think More Strategically, Critically, and Creatively
Misc (Consulting Mindset, Sharing Information, Coaching Your Team, Salary Negotiation, Sales Calls. Please suggest in the comment section any other topic you'd like me to share about.)
RUNNING A MEETING
Meetings are not exactly people's favorite activities in modern work settings -- badly designed meetings that is. Ones that has no clear purpose, lack context, we are not sure why we are there, what is needed from us, what we learn from it; too long, too short, too rushed, too shallow, too deep, too broad. Bad meetings are expensive.
But, we can make bad meetings better. The ready to use scripts and phrases here will hopefully help you set, run, and navigate more productive meetings.
PREPARING (USUALLY ASYNCHRONOUS)
What
Mindset: Do we need a meeting? What will the meeting be for? What will we talk about?
Does anyone have anthing they would like to add to the agenda for tomorrow’s call?
If you can send me what is most important for you to understand before hand that would help me prepare better
We might need to do a few session on this so don't worry about having all the answers for Thursday
I want to propose two topics for today
Let's align on the agenda
Can we please get together for 15' to discuss [...]? Those are not unreasonable requests and I'd like to see how we could tackle those even if it means doing it in iterations [link to meeting room]
I'll bring this example to the wider team in our session Monday and we can all chat through it
When
Mindset: Let's respect other people's time and availability, and mind the communication latency to agree on a time.
Hi x, okay if I put a slot in your diary to have a call with y and I around [thing]?
I'd love to join the call but I wont subject to you the challenges of my diary beyond that. I could do 8am my time tomorrow if that worked for all? // This is good because it is actionable. It cuts the back and forth. It proposes an option.
Sure thing. The best for me this week would be Thursday or Friday
Pushed to tomorrow for 30 mins - normal times resume next week
I'll join and see if anyone has anything. If not it can be a short call
Resourcing call in a couple of minutes. Join if anyone has any issues.
I'll arrange something on Monday morning
We could group early next week to see what we have / can present.
I'll coordinate with them anyways to set up some more time so we can go into more depth
Originally published on Proses.ID
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Good conversations are rare these days but we often forget that we can create them. So go and share this with friends and colleagues who would find this useful to spark meaningful discussions and generate shared experience.