Management Report Discussion Tips

This is a meeting management issue. If the only purpose of the meeting is to review and discuss the contents of the reporting package, the agenda should make that clear – if necessary, explicitly state that there will NOT be discussion of whether the numbers are correct (unless, of course, the errors materially affect how the results should be understood) or how the reports should be designed. Errors in the numbers should be investigated separately – not in a big meeting – and you may want to hold separate, less frequent meetings about suggestions for changing how the numbers are presented.

If you’re finding it hard to control how the meetings play out, this may be an area where it’s useful to get the support of your managers.