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Have you ever facilitated a meeting with the best intentions to stick to the agenda and end on time only to have the conversation go astray and run over? We’ve all been there. It can be easy to quickly blame yourself for what you could have or should have done better. Sure, you could've asked Jonathan to hold his tangential thought for the next meeting, or you could have reminded participants of the time when they went off schedule. Perhaps there are a bunch of things, as a facilitator, that you really can improve for next time. And by all means, spend the time reflecting on this and working on them.
However, don’t fall too far down the rabbit hole of the what you could’ve done. You’re one person. The meeting participants also have a responsibility to be respectful of you as a facilitator, the integrity of the meeting and the time that everyone has dedicated to it. As one facilitator, it can be tough to keep order when you have a meeting with many participants. This is normal, and doesn’t always symbolize wrongdoing on your part.
As a meeting facilitator, there can be more outside of your control than in it. Each person in the room has the opportunity to contribute to the meeting’s operation. If they work against your intentions, that’s not on you. Therefore it’s important to recognize when a meeting fail is not about your skills but rather is about what the participants did or did not bring to the meeting. Keep some distance from this. You don’t need to own other people’s stuff.
How do you deal with meetings that don’t go as you planned? Share with us in the comments below.