Have an agenda -- It’s frustrating when meetings seem pointless. Create an agenda so participants know what to expect. Review the agenda at the beginning of the meeting, and check in periodically to see how the group is doing in comparison to the agenda. Make adjustments as needed to ensure that you end the meeting as planned, or extend the meeting for a specific time and purpose agreed upon by the group.

Come prepared -- From the audience members’ points of view, is your presentation too long or laden with information that the group doesn’t really need? Have you addressed what’s important to your group? Are you using too much jargon? By thinking about what information most interests your audience, you can focus your presentation more effectively.

Maintain control of the meeting -- Provide ground rules at the start, and get the group’s buy-in before proceeding. You might say, "To get through this meeting, we’ll need to follow some ground rules: only one person speaks at a time, and we don’t attack individuals voicing the issues; we’ll keep time to ensure that everyone has time to speak, so we may ask you to wrap up your point if we’re needing to move on. Can we all live with those ground rules for this meeting?" Once stated, you can hold participants to the ground rules.

Stay cool in the face of anger -- When anger erupts and personal attacks begin, remind participants that opinions are invited, but you need to focus on the issues and not attack the person. To stay on track, try a few conflict resolution tips:

• Frame your response with a transition phrase that acknowledges the frustration or anger, such as, "I understand your concern," or "I know that it’s very frustrating… let’s see if we can get to the specific issue that bothers you the most about this," "I’m hearing a few things here…" or "what I think I hear you saying is x y z, is this correct?" Transition into your response.
• If the topic is really controversial and a participant gets out of control, you might say something like, "Tom, I know this is a frustrating topic, and I’d be happy to discuss it further with you off-line so that the rest of the group has the chance to ask their questions here now."
• Refer again to the ground rules covered at the beginning of the meeting, reiterating that personal attacks, speaking out of turn, dominating the discussion, etc., do not further the goal of sharing information that all attendees care about.

Stay on track -- If participants leap to peripheral issues, you might say something like, "That’s a good issue, but we’ve got a tight schedule for today’s discussion. Does anyone have other comments about (the topic on the agenda)?"

Handle questions like a pro -- Listen to questions deeply and don’t interrupt. If the person looks confused or frustrated as you respond, say something like, "I’m not sure this is what you’re looking for Sally. Can I answer the question in another way?" If you don’t know the answer, say so—"You know, Ed, that’s a good question, and I don’t know the answer." If you’re able, make a suggestion as to where the individual might find the answer, or be prepared to answer the question as soon as the information becomes available.

Wrap things gracefully -- About 10 minutes before wrap-up time, do a "time check" that lets participants know they’ve got time for one or two more questions. A few minutes before the meeting is scheduled to end, move from your last question/answer to a summary of next steps and key points (what you want people to leave the meeting knowing).

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