doing meetings well

[wapbapboo]

I get quite a lot of anxiety about meetings- preparing for them, facilitating them, contributing/presenting. Does anyone have any good suggestions/techniques that work for them, books etc.

I just don't have to do them very often, but when I do they are often very important, stakes are high.

Need some tried and tested strategies.

Thanks in advance

What is your role in the meeting, are you the chair?

I work for a charity, the role is taking donors to visit projects, in the hope they will support them. So having aims for the meeting, prepping the project, and handing over to project staff in the meeting, with me covering off wider questions about the charity, and following up afterwards.

The other type of meetings are 1.1s with line reports who manage multiple projects. I feel like they don't know what they are updating me on so they just talk through what they have done and what they are going to do next. I feedback, ask questions, input where I think it's helpful. I don't know if I missing something, I suppose I would expect them to ask more questions.

Shouldn't you be creating accountability plans for those who report to you, this is what you want to achieve, this is how you said you'd do it, what have you done towards that objective, how can we support you?

maybe a set agenda would help with those.

The others, for donors, are sales pitches, really. Probably is guidance online how to do sales pitch meetings, how to structure them to best effect.