Before you go into a meeting with a customer or employee, consider the following:

1. Go in disconnected to your emotions.  Be objective right from the start and try and obtain a positive outcome without concentrating on the communication techniques of the other people in the meeting.
2. Make a plan.  Plan what you would like to achieve in the meeting, send an Agenda so that the attendees will know what to expect.  Allow twice as much time as you think it would take for the meeting.
3. Ask lots of questions and listen.  Don't get caught up in the drama.  Try and ascertain the facts.
4. Give everyone equal access to your time.  Ensure that you treat everyone fairly with your time, even those trouble makers.
5. Set a course for the discussion and consistently follow it.  It is a good idea to set an Agenda and send it before the meeting so that all attendees know what will be covered in the meeting.

If you liked this article, there are plenty more articles about how to run effective meetings.

How effective does your team work together?  How can your team improve?  This questionnaire will help you to identify the trouble spots in your team.  You may even want all your team members to answer it to ensure that your perceptions are consistent.  So, honestly, rate your team effectiveness out of 10, with 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest. Grab a pen and paper and score yourself out of ten, with 10 being the best and 1 being the lowest.

1. Are all the team members productive in their teams?
2. How effective are your team roles?
3. Does each team member understand their responsibilities to their team?
4. Do you have effective team goals?
5. Do you effectively solve problems as a team?
6. Are tasks delegated to individual team members?
7. Does your team use effective communication techniques?
8. Does your team have effective communication systems in place?
9. Do you run effective meetings which cover all the important issues?
10. Do you take minutes and action lists for your meetings?

This tool identifies areas that you can improve on in your team building training.  Once you have identified areas that you would like to improve, you want want to utilise some tools on this website or visit Team Building Training for more information.

Tally up your results.  What score did you get?

A DISC Profiling System identifies the behaviour characteristics of an individual.  The DISC Profiling System is based on four areas of influence including:

1. Dominance - the person's ability to get their point across in a challenging environment, which range from Passive to Aggressive.  They can be competitive, aggressive, decisive and results orientated.  They can at times be impatient, overbearing, rude, not good listeners and prone to making snap decisions.
2. Influence - Their ability to persuade others, people rating high are friendly and suited to customer service or sales.  They are talkative, sociable, optimistic and lively, however, they can be inattentive to details, overly talkative and emotional.
3. Steadiness - They like to remain in one job and don't like a lot of change or variety, this is a good trait for data entry jobs.  They are calm, helpful, patient and modest but can require stability and security.  They can also be indecisive and stubborn.
4. Compliance - Their ability is to follow rules.  They are a stickler for regulations and guidelines and have little flexibility.  This is good for auditing, standards or accredition.  They are precise and logical, analytical and careful.  They can get lost in analysis and can possibly be critical, distant or pessimistic.

Most people are a blend of two of the above personality traits.  Different personality traits have different benefits for different roles in the organisation.  The key is to get the right personalities in a team, with each individual working in roles reflective of their personality traits.