(Example: One employee is great with web research, web design, and staying up on competition. She’s lousy on phone. Right now, she’s willing to cut back and work half-time from her house with a company-supplied computer and cable modem.)

If your job opened up today, would you get it? Are you consistently producing great results, solving problems and finding more efficient ways of doing things?

(Example: Take on a project no one wants and make it work. Can you persuade people to get onboard and achieve a goal? Now, that’s leadership—a quality that is in GREAT demand and therefore, recession-proof.)

Eileen McDargh, CSP, CPAE, is an international speaker, author and seminar leader. Her book ‘Work for A Living and Still Be Free to Live’ is also title of one of her most popular and upbeat programs on Work/Life Balance. For more information on Eileen and her presentations, please call 949-496-8640 or visit her web site at http://www.eileenmcdargh.com.

© 2000 by Eileen McDargh. All rights reserved. Reprints must include byline, contact information and copyright.

However, there are times when one needs someone else to conduct a meeting. The more emotion that is connected to a meeting, more complex issues, more it behooves you to consider using a facilitator. A wise facilitator creates a setting that makes it "safe" for people to speak their truth. A facilitator creates a process around whatever is desired outcome of meeting and can hold people to task.

When I have been brought in to facilitate, I make it a practice of interviewing participants beforehand and creating a composite of various "common threads" of concern. In this fashion, no one person is singled out and meeting can get down to important elements. Likewise, as an external facilitator, I have no political agenda or job security hanging in balance. Thus, it frees me to focus totally on helping participants reach their outcome. Time is most precious commodity we have. Time-wasting meetings constitute greatest theft of all. Conduct them well and judiciously and you'll hear people say, "We've got to START meeting like this!".

© 2000 by Eileen McDargh. All rights reserved. Reprints must include byline, contact information and copyright.