Beginning with the End in Mind: Focused Conversations, Clear Outcomes

Beginning with the End in Mind: Focused Conversations, Clear Outcomes
with Chris Williams of Interaction Associates

In this hands-on 45-minute workshop, facilitator Chris Williams will guide you through a process for designing strategic meetings that deliver results. This is the same process that IA has used to teach more than ⅓ of the Fortune 500.

He’ll start by having you reflect on the common problems with meetings and then share how to write powerful desired outcome statements that set the direction for any conversation.
You’ll break into practice groups to consider and draft desired outcomes for a real strategic meeting, with peers serving as your coaches. Then, Chris will unpack and demonstrate live coaching with volunteers, helping them sharpen their outcomes, consider participant dynamics, and create a detailed agenda that connects outcomes with process design.

Together, we’ll explore how to design an interaction that results in clarity of outcome, interactive process tools like sticky notes, breakout groups, virtual tools like MURAL, and energizers to make the meeting and experience truly human, collaborative, efficient, and effective.
The workshop will feature a mini-fishbowl coaching round where everyone can observe, offer feedback, and apply insights to their own designs. By the end, each participant will walk away with a draft working agenda for a strategic meeting, along with practical tools for ensuring outcomes and processes are aligned.

Your takeaway will be: a clear outcome statement, a draft agenda, and a repeatable framework for designing meetings that achieve their intended outcomes.

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Chris Williams currently serves as the Chief Operating Officer of Interaction Associates, also known as IA. He has trained hundreds of leaders to design and run more effective meetings and bring out the best in others through human-focused collaboration and facilitation skills. Some organizations he has supported include Amazon Robotics, the CDC, and Wellington Management.

IA was founded in 1969 by architects David Straus and Michael Doyle and is a pioneer in group process facilitation and early collaborators with pioneers in information management (Geoff Ball) and graphic facilitation (David Sibbet/Grove). IA is focused on helping people lead, meet, and work better together.

linkedin.com/in/chriswilliamsleadership
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NOVA Scribes has entered into a partnership with the IFVP: the International Forum of Visual Practitioners! This workshop is part of IFVP Learning.

This workshop will be recorded and posted on YouTube for anyone who cannot attend. You can find the YouTube link in the Comments section of this NOVA Scribes Meetup event once the workshop video has been uploaded to YouTube.

We’re not charging for this workshop, but we will be asking for donations! Donations cover the costs of hosting events on Meetup, to honorariums for new graphic recorders, and scholarships.

Please be sure you are registered on Meetup! If your Zoom name doesn’t match your name on Meetup, you will not be admitted. (We’ve had Zoom bombers.)