what happened at the big meeting?

…we always ask the meeting owner—the most senior executive hosting it—the same two questions:

• What do you want to have debated, decided, or discovered at the end of this session that you and the team haven’t already debated, decided, or discovered?
• What do you want attendees to say when their team members ask, “What happened at the big meeting?”

In almost every case, the response is the same: “That’s a good question—I hadn’t actually thought about those things.”

It doesn’t matter if it’s an eight-person board meeting, a 15-person executive team meeting, or a 150-person leadership conference—your first step when planning an important one-off or non-routine get-together should be to draft an initial set of goals based on the answers to the two questions above. In the words of Stephen Covey, “Begin with the end in mind.”

Bob Frisch and Cary Greene

“If You Can’t Say What Your Meeting Will Accomplish, You Shouldn’t Have It,” Harvard Business Review. April 18, 2016 as quoted in HBR Guide to Making Every Meeting Matter. Harvard Business Review Press. 2016.