How to manage tricky community meetings – big or small (In house course)
It’s a nightmare – and it’s your nightmare
Your meeting goes off the rails and people become very difficult. How can you stop it ever happening? And what do you do if it does?
Here’s the scene.
You’re running a meeting ….and before you know it you have something that’s rapidly going out of your control:
- A crowded room, aggressive behaviour, bad language and unreasonable responses
- So many opposing views that you can’t get decisions made
- People not contributing when you are trying to get their views
- People not shutting up, heckling and constantly going off at a tangent
- People rambling and bringing up personal views
- People under the influence of drink or drugs being disruptive
- The agenda is overrun or just plain ignored
It may never happen, but what if it does? How could you have forestalled it? What should you do now?
And you know that this is what really can happen, though we all hope it doesn’t happen to us. When it does you feel isolated and don’t know where to turn. You probably want the floor to open up so you can simply vanish.
You can reduce the likelihood of these situations occurring though, and there are ways to handle them when they occur, which is why we are putting on this entirely new, very worthwhile workshop.
As you will see, there are many practical things you can do, before and during the meeting:
For instance you can minimise the possibility of catastrophe by:
- Planning properly
- Managing people’s expectations
- Being clear about the role of the facilitator or chair of the meeting
- Starting the meeting with confidence, then using personal skills, the right verbal and body language to keep things moving and on track
- Involving the audience so you reduce the chance of disruptive behaviour
You’ll see how to do all these things plus other important skills like:
- What you should do before the meeting to make it more likely to succeed
- How to start and run your meeting so that it’s more likely to go smoothly
- How you can use language and non verbal signs to influence people
- How to detect when emotions are running dangerously high
- Simple things you can do to minimise disruption
- Different ways to run meetings so as to achieve the outcome you want
- How to build consensus between people who disagree
- What to do when things do go off the rails and all hell breaks loose
You’ll leave more confident that you can deal with challenging behaviour and more importantly how to reduce its likelihood in the first place.
To run this course in house email me at rod@rodlaird.co.uk or phone 01494 772 458
What delegates say about this course:
"I found the course stimulating, very well presented. A rare inspirational tutor!"
Lena Butcher, Community Gateway Advisor, Greenfields Community Housing
“This is the best training course I have been on. I’ve picked up loads of ideas about tenant training from which courses to run, to how to make them interesting and informative. I am really keen to go back to work and implement these ideas.”
Briony Pocklington, Resident Support Officer, London Borough of Lewisham
“A really enjoyable course, extremely well presented.“
Debbie Teece, Tenant Participation Officer, Eastlands Homes