The following five tips for holding an effective meeting can help you engage the group, get ideas flowing and keep things positive.

1. Cancel the meeting, seriously. Ask yourself: Can the information I intend to present be disseminated using one-way communications, such as a memo or email? If so, cancel the meeting. If you actually want input and interactivity, then schedule a meeting.

2. Set a positive tone. Starting off on the right foot: pay attention to the meeting time (do not schedule a meeting just before lunch or quitting time), invite only those people that truly need to be there, and start the meeting with introductions. Asking everyone to add personal facts, such as favorite hobby or cartoon character, provides an opportunity for laughs and gets everyone interacting.

3. Plot a course. Once you have everyone engaged, the quickest way to lose them is to slow down. Prepare a complete agenda, including objectives and time allotments. Display it in the meeting, crossing off items as they are completed so everyone can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

4. Stop and feed the animals. Most people have a pretty brief attention span, usually around 45 to 60 minutes. Schedule breaks every 45 minutes. Also, rather than providing food at the beginning of a meeting, provide food on the breaks, when a boost is needed. Provide a variety of snacks, healthful and more indulgent, to satisfy every taste.

5. Divide and conquer. One great way to ensure engagement is to divide the meeting into groups; in a small group, it is easier for everyone to be active. Break a meeting of 20 people into four tables. Ask each table to ponder certain issues, then to present their thoughts to the larger group for discussion.

Be positive, let everyone get to know each other, let them rest, let them eat and keep them engaged and you will have the most effective meeting of your career.

Last night I got to catch up with a very wonderful lady, Shelle Rose Charvet, president of Success Strategies. She is perhaps best known around the world for her ground-breaking book “Words That Change Minds: Mastering the Language of Influence.” It is used as a text book in several university business programs in the U.S. and the U.K., as well as at Coach University. It’s currently available in several languages.

She has been asked by clients around Europe and North America to:

Rewrite or create marketing pieces and sales processes for organizations based on the below-conscious motivation triggers of their customers and potential customers

Create learning programs in negotiation, marketing and sales for clients in several industries

Re-position product and services to take on very large competitors

Assist in recruiting key executive positions

Teach managers, team leaders and contact centre professionals to deal with upset customers and create customer loyalty

Train front-line government employment centre staff in handling upset and potentially violent clients

Assist in solving some of their most difficult communication problems

Help experienced sales managers to negotiate long-term multi-million dollar contracts with their hard-to-handle customers

Train labor negotiators, one group of whom obtained the first five-year agreement in the history of their company, avoiding an expected strike

Help redesign marketing, sales and service strategies to develop answers to meet the deep unspoken needs of their customers.

Her program is based on LAB Profile, a psycho-linguistic tool to help you understand what motivates people and how to reach them. It’s packed with enough good ideas to change your communication forever! It also includes practical applications for living and working with real people! This fascinating program includes a rigorous methodology along with an incredibly versatile psychometric tool. So if you were one of the lucky people who got to spend time with Shelle last night, well done, for the rest of you follow this link and see where you can catch up with a magical woman.

We’ll be running a LAB profile course in July.

Being instantly motivated to do various tasks in our lives can be challenging if we perceive doing them as pulling an elephant up a hill. You know the ones I am talking about. Cleaning out the closet, preparing the tax return or simply doing the laundry can freeze you in your seat at times and leave you feeling helpless. Well, here is an exercise to let go of the elephant you’re pulling and it’s called “The Godiva Pattern” (we’ll call it the Thortons Pattern for the UK readers_

1. Get comfortable and see yourself in your mind’s eye, looking at something you wildly desire, such as Thortons Chocolates. Feel how strong your desire is. Your are associating yourself with the picture and the desire.

2. Recite your phone number backwards. This will break your train of thought, feelings and desire so you can go to the next step.

3. Get a disassociated picture of yourself doing a task that you need to do and have come to terms with doing it.

4. Check to see if you have any strong objections to doing the task and if so, try to put it in the proper context. If you can’t, chose a different task.

5. Now, hold the task picture in your mind and put the pleasure picture behind it. Quickly make a hole in the center of the task picture big enough to see the pleasure picture, so that it has the pleasure effect you desire. When you get that strong desire pulling though, quickly shrink the hole. Shrink the hole only as fast as you can maintain the desire. Repeat this 3 to 5 more times as quickly as you can.

The idea is bring the pleasure and desire of the first picture to the task picture. How do you feel about doing the task now? Work with this technique to bring instant motivation into your life and have fun with all you do.