Lead a Meeting in English | 10 Must-Have Strategies Plus Example Phrases

how do you start manage and end a business meeting or a decision-making conversation effectively in english ensuring that by the end everyone is satisfied it's not an easy task whether you regularly host meetings but struggle with the confidence of doing them in english or you're unexpectedly tasked to lead a discussion in english at the very last minute this lesson today is going to help you do all of that we're going to focus on 10 essential strategies for successful meetings and business conversations in english along the way you'll also learn essential phrases [Music] if you don't already know i'm anne-marie with speak confident english everything i do is designed to help you get the confidence you want for your life and work in english one way i do that is with these weekly confident english lessons where i share with you confidence and fluency building strategies advanced level vocabulary and targeted lessons on communication skills like in this lesson today if you find this lesson helpful be sure that you subscribe to my speak confident english channel so that you never miss one of these weekly confident english lessons now if you've ever done a quick google search on how to lead a successful meeting in english i'm certain that you've found articles highlighting the importance of starting and ending on time creating an agenda and so on all of that is true and we will highlight some key phrases for all of those steps today in this lesson but we're going to go much further you'll also gain lesser known strategies for overall preparedness and smooth communication ultimately everyone will walk away from the meeting or discussion knowing that it was worth their time and with clarity on what's going to happen next here's a quick snapshot of the 10 strategies we're going to walk through step by step set and share your agenda prepare your key points determine and communicate the purpose open the meeting and provide initial updates model active listening skills be ready to ask targeted questions and minimize off-track conversations say your point and stop talking give thanks where thanks is due and finally close with your action steps before we jump into strategy number one let's talk a moment about preparation if you've been tasked with leading a meeting or a discussion in english and you're struggling with confidence if you're feeling nervous and staying awake at night never underestimate the power of practicing by speaking out loud this is a strategy i talk about in depth in my how to say what you want training which is a free training available at my speak confident english website after we go through these strategies today i recommend that you download that training and use what you learned there to help you be prepared and gain the confidence you need and now strategy number one set and share the agenda preparing an agenda helps create a roadmap for the discussion or meeting you're about to have but many leaders unfortunately stop there sharing the agenda with your team in advance ensures that everyone has time to come to the meeting prepared not only that it shows that you value your team's input and you're taking care of some of your more introverted and shyer team members as well you're giving them time to think before they may need to speak an easy way to share and set expectations for the meeting in advance is to send it by email or post it on a communication platform you have with your team i recommend doing it at least 24 hours in advance when you do that here's a great phrase you can use to let everyone know why you're sharing the agenda please find the agenda for tuesday's 10 o'clock meeting attached in sharing it now i expect everyone to come to the meeting prepared and i anticipate a more successful outcome our second strategy for successful meetings and discussions in english is prepare your key points having an agenda is a great start but it doesn't mean that you're prepared to share your ideas how many times have you wanted to express something to share an idea or a solution you had but then in the moment you got stuck preparing in advance will help you have the confidence you need in the moment you're ready to speak whether you are the one creating the agenda or if you're reviewing an agenda that your boss has shared with you here are some questions that can help you think about your key points in advance what updates do i need to provide and what details do i need to include what ideas or questions do i want to bring up what issues do i want to discuss and resolve and why are these important what challenges am i facing or what do i need a decision on and who do i need to thank or acknowledge of course you may not have answers to all of those questions and you may not need to address all of them but going through each one will help you be more prepared and have time to think about the language you need to express what you want in the moment also i recommend that while you go through those questions write down any keywords that come to your mind it's common for all of us to have a notebook or a piece of paper with us in a meeting and if you've written down those keywords in advance you can reference them quickly and make sure that everything you want to say is ready and you're prepared to do it successfully in the meeting strategy number three for successful meetings in english is determine and communicate the purpose of your meeting this is one final preparation step you can take before you have your meeting and what this really means is what is the one specific thing or the one specific outcome you want from this meeting do you need everyone to agree on a way forward on a specific project do you expect to divide up numerous tasks among team members and have everyone walk away with clarity on what they're supposed to do next is the goal to get a thorough progress update communicating this purpose with your team along with the agenda will ensure that that primary goal is achieved strategy number four open the meeting with a positive tone and provide initial updates setting a positive productive tone right from the start helps others feel comfortable when it's time for them to contribute their ideas this means thinking carefully about how to open the meeting including how to welcome everyone create space for introductions if necessary and provide any immediate updates right at the start i'll share a few examples here in this video lesson but you can get several more by visiting this lesson at my speak confident english website and you'll find a link to that just below this video a few common ways to positively open the meeting include starting with a greeting good morning everyone or good afternoon everyone and then now that everyone's here let's get started or i'd like to get started and welcome all of you to the meeting today if introductions are necessary here are a few ways you can get that started before we dive into the agenda let's go around the room and have everyone quickly introduce themselves please be sure to include your name and your position or i know most of you here but i do see a few unfamiliar faces so let's do a quick round of introductions and then when you're ready to introduce the agenda and provide any initial updates here are a few ways to do that as a quick reminder our goal for this meeting today is and then let everyone know the purpose of the meeting or that one specific outcome you want to achieve another way to say that might be by the end of this meeting today we should have a decision on and then the expected outcome if there are multiple topics that you need to discuss you could introduce them quickly by saying we have a few items on the agenda to discuss today the first is the second the third and so on as you review those sentences i just shared you might notice some transition words or phrases things like the first one the second one and finally or by the end of our discussion today these transition words and phrases help to guide your audience so they know where you're going and what to expect at every step and now strategy number five model active listening skills recently my confident women community spent two weeks exploring the world of soft skills soft skills include a mix of attitudes character traits and interpersonal skills that lead to productive communication and successful problem solving active listening is certainly an essential component of interpersonal skills in a meeting or discussion listening carefully and demonstrating that you're listening carefully lets others know that you value their contributions now i have a full lesson on this topic of how to demonstrate active listening or powerful listening skills in english so i won't go over all of that here i'm going to highlight just a few key examples but if you want to learn more about how you demonstrate how you show that you're actively listening i'll share a link to that lesson just below this video in english speaking culture one way that we demonstrate that we're listening carefully is by maintaining eye contact looking at the person speaking even if you're on a video call you can still do this by looking directly into the camera a second key component for demonstrating active listening skills in english-speaking culture is to use body language not only might you maintain eye contact but we also tend to lean forward or lean in when we're listening to someone and we might nod our head to show agreement or understanding once again if you want to get more examples of how you can demonstrate active listening in english be sure to check out my lesson on that topic strategy number six on our list is be ready to ask targeted questions if you are leading the discussion or if you've called the meeting everyone else is looking to you to guide the conversation along the best way to do that and the best way to encourage vibrant conversation is to ask a variety of questions that are strategic that elicit information or details questions that help recognize others and their contributions and questions that offer help if needed let's take a look at a few examples of each and again i provide several more examples of targeted questions you can ask in the online lesson which you can find at my website and there's a link below this video your strategic questions might include based on the opportunities we have what is the best way forward or given these challenges how should we proceed elicitation questions include i'd like to hand it over to cindy who can share her thoughts on or simply what does everyone think about this a couple of recognition questions are how did your team accomplish this or who helped you with this project and questions that offer help might be what would help you the most right now or what resources do you need to achieve your ultimate outcome once you get the conversation going with targeted questions you might find that on occasion the conversation goes off track or gets off topic so strategy number seven minimize off track conversations and help others stay on point if a discussion gets too far off track it might result in not achieving the outcome or the purpose of your meeting so to help everyone stay focused on the task at hand here are a few things you can say this is certainly an important topic that we need to continue discussing but we'll have to save it for another time for now we need to get back to the agenda so that we can achieve our goal for our meeting today or that's a great point but we'll need to follow up on that in another meeting or after the meeting today i really appreciate your idea on that can we explore it further in another meeting so that we can get back to the agenda for today once again if you want more examples of how you can successfully get the conversation back on track be sure to visit this lesson at my website and now strategy number eight for successful meetings and discussions in english say your point and stop talking when we're nervous when we're unprepared or we're not getting the feedback from others that we expect we have a tendency to ramble to ramble means to speak without clarity or direction we just go on and on and on we repeat ourselves again and again and ultimately we speak without impact whether you're introducing a meeting topic or sharing your idea or solution it's important to keep your comments brief what that means is you say what you need to say one time and then stop speaking allow for a pause some silence that can be a little uncomfortable or awkward the first time but those pauses allow for a few things to happen they allow you to observe the reaction of everyone else and maybe get some visual feedback as to whether they understood or not it also shows that you've finished speaking and so if someone else has something to contribute or a question they want to ask for clarification that's the perfect time to do so if no one says anything at all it may be an opportunity for you to move on to the next point it's important to trust that when you have those moments of silence others will ask questions if they have one and if they don't it's perfectly appropriate to move on to the next point strategy number nine in a meeting give thanks where thanks is due a good leader will recognize the contributions of others so when it's applicable make sure to take time to recognize and praise what others have done and the good news is this doesn't have to be a lengthy speech in fact it's more powerful when we keep our thanks limited to just one or two sentences i like to include three key things when giving thanks or recognizing others include the name of the team or the individual identify what they did or accomplished and describe the impact here's an example i'd like to take a moment to thank anna for urging us to update our entire community on changes we're making to the platform in doing so not only did our community feel more engaged in this process but they also shared with us their thoughts which allowed us to make better decisions for our platform and finally strategy 10 on our list for how to lead a successful discussion or meeting in english summarize your key points and close with your action steps this doesn't mean that you have to repeat everything that was said but rather highlighting the key points and any significant decisions or tasks that have been assigned here are a few example phrases to help you do that effectively we're getting close to our time so let's wrap up with and then summarize the key points the key decisions or the key tasks that have been assigned a second option if there are no further issues to discuss i want to finish with a quick summary and highlight and then once again highlight those key points if you want a few more examples of how to effectively summarize and close the meeting definitely visit this lesson at the speak confident english website and if you've had an aha moment while listening to this lesson today a moment of insight i'd love to hear about it as always you can share your questions and comments with me in the comment section below this video and while you're here don't forget to subscribe to the speak confident english channel thank you so much for joining me and i look forward to seeing you next time

Channel: Speak Confident English

Views: 156,053

Keywords: speak confident english, english with anne marie, confident english lesson, business meeting in english, how to lead a business meeting, how to lead a meeting in english, lead a meeting in english, strategies to lead a meeting in english, professional english for business, english for business communication, english for business meetings, useful phrases for business meeting in english, lead meetings in english, lead a business meeting in english

Id: Y2mP4pcEXhw

Length: 18min 36sec (1116 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 13 2022