Welcoming creates a transition

The first task of any meeting is to minimize the threat people may experience by creating a welcoming environment. This helps people relax while the innovative, collaborative part of the brain becomes available to do the work of the meeting.

You wouldn’t think of not welcoming someone into your home. You greet people at the door, you take their coats, and you offer them a drink of water. These simple acts help people make the transition from the outside world into your home.

The same holds true for meetings. Creating a welcoming environment helps people make the transition from the work they’ve been doing to the meeting they are joining as they learn with whom they’ll be working and how they’ll be working together.

Unfortunately, in their desire to make the meeting productive, most meeting leaders, contributors, and facilitators givethe welcome short shift. While most people know it’s important to welcome others, they end up welcoming in a perfunctory manner or leaving out this step altogether.

Here are some of the ways people are made to feel unwelcome in meetings:

• No welcoming smile greets them. They find themselves sitting in a row of chairs that surround the meeting table. It is clear to them that some people get to sit at the table, while others don’t.

• They have no idea what the purpose of the meeting or their role in it is.

• The meeting room reeks of power and privilege. They immediately understand that they have neither power nor privilege in this meeting.

• No one asks for their opinion, and if they do speak up, it is clear that they shouldn’t have spoken.

• If they happen to come late, everyone ignores them.

• They are asked to discuss in five minutes a topic they know requires at least thirty minutes of discussion.

What is so great about creating a welcoming environment is that you already know how to do it. It’s not as if you don’t have the skill.