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Make Meetings Work Live Workshop

There are many reasons why most meetings suck. 

  • No clear outcomes or agenda 

  • Dominating personalities 

  • No follow-up accountability 

  • Information overload 

  • Conflict or conflict avoidance 

What if we told you that each of those issues is avoidable and that you could fix it? 

The answer is meeting skills.

Facilitators get paid to make meetings seem like magic using a secret bag of tricks that only they have. Our goal is to bring these skills to anyone who leads or participates in meetings.

DATES

Thursdays, July 11 to August 1, 2024

TIME

12-4 PM, ET

LOCATION

Online via Zoom

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What You’ll Learn

  • A quick, collaborative decision-making process

  • Basic meeting management techniques

  • Planning and preparation 

  • Designing an engaging agenda 

  • Meeting etiquette 

  • Energizers (aka icebreakers)

  • Advanced brainstorming and decision-making techniques

  • Action and follow through 

  • Navigating conflict 

  • Virtual meeting tools

  • Facilitating with visuals

Excerpt from Season 1 of This Meeting Sucks, the podcast season that inspired this workshop

Putting It Into Practice

This is a highly participatory workshop. We avoid long lectures and focus on experiential learning. Before each workshop, we will assign you episodes of the podcast to listen to (less than 30 minutes). During the workshop, you’ll have the opportunity to work individually and in small groups on things like meeting management techniques, brainstorming activities, and navigating conflict. There will also be short practice assignments between each session to encourage you to integrate the lessons right away. Before each session, we’ll reflect on what worked and what you learned.

Agenda

THURSDAY, JULY 11

  • Welcome and introductions

  • What makes a meeting work?

  • Collaborative decision making

  • Kicking off a meeting

  • Basic meeting management

  • Closeout and next steps

THURSDAY, JULY 18

  • Welcome and check-in 

  • Planning and preparation 

  • Designing an engaging agenda 

  • Meeting etiquette

  • Energizers (aka icebreakers)

  • Closeout and next steps

THURSDAY, JULY 25

  • Welcome and check-in

  • Brainstorming techniques

  • Action and following through

  • Decision-making techniques

  • Navigating conflict

  • Closeout and next steps

THURSDAY, AUGUST 1

  • Welcome and check-in

  • MeetingMakers Framework

  • Virtual meeting tools

  • Facilitating with visuals

  • Q&A

  • Graduation ceremony

Pricing

Registration ends on Wednesday, July 10, 2024.

Early Bird Pass (ends June 1): $500

MeetingMaker Pass: $600

Sign up teams of 3 or more for half-off pricing (contact us for details)

Scholarship: Learn more

Gift for Sign Up

As a thank you for signing up for our first inaugural MeetingMakers Academy, you’ll receive a free copy of our This Meeting Sucks Season 1 Playbook . This ebook will serve as a headstart to learning the content we’ll cover in the workshop and a quick and helpful refresher of what you learned after you complete the course.
Photo of Lauren Green

Meet the Instructor

This workshop will be led by Lauren Green, MeetingMakers lead facilitator and trainer, and This Meeting Sucks podcast host. Lauren is a certified virtual facilitator, certified coach, experienced visual note-taker and effective leadership development trainer. Lauren teaches facilitation as an adjunct professor for George Mason University’s Organization Development and Knowledge Management Program. She holds a master’s degree in Organization Development and Knowledge Management from George Mason University.

Who Should Attend

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Business person icon

Project & Program Managers

Early-Mid Career Professionals Who Lead Meetings

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Community Organizers & Social Workers

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Leaders of New Initiatives & Innovation Campaigns

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Meeting & Event Planners

Undergraduate & Graduate Students Entering the Workforce

Testimonials

  • "Lauren is an emotionally intelligent and trustworthy coach and facilitator. She is is gifted and skilled at designing in person and virtual sessions so that individuals and groups contribute and grow."

    WORKSHOP PARTICIPANT

  • "Lauren has a unique talent to provide coaching to professionals in learning and development. She provided me space to practice my facilitation skills, brainstorm how to design learning materials, and asked thought-provoking questions that allowed me to enhance my confidence and delivery."

    COACHING CLIENT

  • "Lauren's friendliness is a beautiful entree into shared knowledge. She's so easy to work with and a real expert in digital facilitation, in-the-room facilitation, and graphic recording. She creates psychological safety with every group she leads."

    WORKSHOP PARTICIPANT

  • "Lauren has a treasure chest of resources and ideas that can help improve your performance whether it is producing a final product, public speaking, facilitation or so many other things. She is an incredible expert in facilitation and a remarkable coach."

    COACHING CLIENT

  • "Lauren is keeping her followers abreast of new equipment and online platforms for hybrid meetings. She hosted an excellent webinar with Mike Schlegel, where they describe in detail what equipment and setup you need to address the three key elements of hybrid meetings."

    WORKSHOP ORGANIZER

 FAQs

  • It’s important that you attend all four sessions, as each builds on itself. If you can’t make it due to an emergency or unforeseen priority, we will do what we can to provide ways to get the missing information. Because of the experiential nature of the program and to protect the privacy of other participants, we will not record the sessions.

  • You’ll need your favorite notetaking tools and a computer. For those who plan to lead in-person meetings, we can provide recommended supplies for your toolkit. You’re welcome to practice with these supplies during the workshop.

  • If you already facilitate meetings and feel like you have a good understanding of the “basics,” this course might be a bit repetitive for you, but hey, it never hurts to have a refresher. You might find this course helps fill in some gaps or validate your existing knowledge.

  • Yes! This is a fundamentals program—the tools we provide translate to both in-person and online meetings. We’ll discuss both types of meetings in tandem. As a bonus, you will learn how to use MURAL, as it is the tool we use to collaborate throughout the program.

  • This is a live, experiential program. None of the sessions will be recorded.

  • Awesome! Please contact us through our Contact Page, and we’ll answer your question, plus add it to this list. Thank you in advance for reaching out!

  • We get it. Life happens. If you need to cancel before 14 days from the start of the event, we’ll refund your payment in full. Within 14 days, we will offer partial refunds on a case-by-case basis. We cannot offer refunds within two days of the event.

Scholarship

We are offering half-priced scholarship rates to current students age 18 years or older actively pursuing undergraduate or graduate studies, former students who graduated in the past 12 months, or early career professionals up to age 26 and pursuing a professional career track. All approved applicants will be entered into a raffle to win one free spot.

To apply, please submit the following application package to lauren@makemeetings.work with the subject line “SCHOLARSHIP APPLICATION.” 

  • Video recording (five minutes or less) describing a project for school or work that included leading or facilitating meetings. Discuss a key challenge during the meeting, how you and/or the team addressed the challenge, and what you learned about meetings as a result. Cell phone videos are acceptable.

Application deadline: June 30, 2024