Preparing for the Meeting You Don’t Want to Have

It’s the meeting you’ve forced yourself to schedule — or asked your assistant to put on your calendar for you, because you knew you wouldn’t. It’s the one you’ve postponed four times, or nearly canceled five minutes before it began. The one that made you wonder whether you felt well enough to go to work that day. You know, that meeting.

Whether it was to demand better performance from your team, ask your boss for a raise or let someone go, we’ve all had to ask for, and conduct, difficult meetings in our careers. The dread they inspire can keep you up at night, distract you from your other priorities and cause more problems than they solve.

The key to easing the pain of difficult meetings is preparation. We have to resist the urge to “get the meeting over with.” We should never hold a tough meeting before first taking the time to create a well-thought-out agenda and to anticipate the worst arguments and questions that we might face.

Of course, we also don’t want to delay such meetings indefinitely, which would mean living with the anxiety they cause even longer. It’s best to schedule this kind of a meeting about a week after realizing you need to have it — unless there’s a compelling reason to hold it sooner.

Goals for the meeting

Before setting the meeting’s date, time or location, we need to ask ourselves, “What do we want to get out of this meeting?” What would we like the other person or people attending to do, say, think or feel after they’ve heard our points? Do we want them to dress appropriately for work? Or is our intention more serious, and we hope they will accept their termination with grace and leave the building quietly? Do you want your boss to give you more money than anyone else at your level? As Joe Jackson sang, “You Can’t Get What You Want (‘Til You Know What You Want).”

A friend recently asked me to help her plan what to say during a meeting with an employee who was lodging an unreasonable complaint. I asked her what she wished to get from the meeting. She replied that since the employee was being reassigned in a few weeks, she just wanted to defuse the situation as much as possible. I suggested that she let the employee speak his piece, but to have responses prepared so that she wouldn’t capitulate or exacerbate the situation.

Main points 

Once we’ve determined what a meeting should achieve, the next step is to list three main points to make in the meeting. These short, declarative sentences — backed up with specifics — are designed to lead the other person to our objective. 

When disciplining an employee, for example, we might use one point to outline the problem, another to show how it affects the entire team, and the third to communicate what we expect to change. Unless it’s a termination, we should offer the employee some hope that the problem can be resolved. 

After we’ve written down our points, we have to figure out every counterargument, tough question or reaction we might face. In doing so, we should remember that the other person might feel desperate or upset.

Next, we have to think about how we’ll respond to their reactions. For example, if you call a meeting to ask for a raise and the boss replies that you’ve already been late 20 times this year and it’s only February, you might counter by pointing out that you’ve stayed late every day and finished all of your work, and that you’ll wake up earlier from now on. If an employee claims that you’ve never liked him or her, bring up the times you’ve supported that person.

Location, location, location

The next step is to decide the best location for the meeting, assuming that we have a choice in the matter. Should the meeting take place in your office, in your colleague’s office, in a conference room, or at the café down the street? 

Each location sends its own message: If the meeting takes place at someone else’s office, it means you’re coming to them. If it occurs in your own office, it means you’re summoning the other person (or people) to you. Meeting in a conference room indicates a companywide situation. A meeting held in a café suggests that you don’t want anyone else at the company to hear it. 

Time to meet

When the time for the meeting arrives, set a firm limit for its duration. But don’t make it so short that the other person doesn’t have time to be heard. 

Start the meeting by stating your key points, and then give the other person the opportunity to ask questions or counter your arguments. Be prepared to hear some invective. Exercise polite control of the meeting. 

After the other people attending have had their say, use your prepared responses to reiterate your key points. Thank them for coming, and then either leave the room or show them out. 

We can’t make difficult meetings easy. But with preparation, we can make them less difficult. 

photo credit: getty images