Conduct the meeting.

Begin the meeting by welcoming the participants and giving a summary of the organisation's goals and objectives, and how encouraging innovation in the workplace can support these.

Your next step is to establish, and document, the team's purpose and long-term objectives and how these support the business's goals and objectives.

You are being asked here to role-play a Team Leader, leading colleagues in thinking up new ways of doing things, but you are also a student, asking your student colleagues for new ideas and how they can be translated into actions. Your team members will all most probably have a favourite caf. Bring this out at the meeting, getting them to look at their own motivations as to what they enjoy, and look at how this could be used to motivate others, as well as their experiences of events (music or social activities) that assisted in increasing interest and support of their favourite eatery.

Also, be aware that the other students at the meeting will be conducting a meeting on the same topic within a short time of you conducting yours. So, try to establish your own meeting leadership style. It should be uniquely yours, and effective. Be conscious that you will be modelling effective meeting leadership throughout the meeting. You should consciously behave as a role model for your colleagues, behaving in a way that encourages team excellence.

Even though you may think that you know what the business should do, being a leader in this meeting means that you are responsible for engaging and motivating the other meeting participants, leading them in collaboration. Not leading them by telling them what to do.

When you have conducted the preliminaries, open the meeting up to ideas that the participants have brought with them. Document the brainstorm on the whiteboard.

Discuss (and record) the ideas the participants give, asking the others for input, looking at it practically, working out what preparation would be necessary, material, personnel, whatever is relevant to carrying the idea to realisation.

While encouraging the team members to find and develop ideas, you are expected to display the following leadership skills:

• Act as a positive role model through your performance.
• Show support for, and commitment to, the business's strategic goals.
• Interacting with team members in a positive and professional manner.
• Encourage the team members to take responsibility for their own work.
• Encourage the team members to develop innovative approaches to their work.
• Model and encourage open and supportive communication within the team.
• Share information from the wider business environment with the team as appropriate for the situation.
• Motivate the team members to achieve optimum performance.

During the meeting, you are required to demonstrate effective communication skills including:

• speaking clearly and concisely
• using non-verbal communication to assist with understanding
• asking questions to identify required information
• responding to questions as required
• using active listening techniques to confirm understanding.

As you come to the meeting's conclusion:

• summarise the ideas and activities to have come out of the meeting.
• the summary should verify the teams, and each team member's, expectations, roles and responsibilities.
• tell the participants that you will lead and support them in meeting the outcomes.

Finish the meeting by thanking the participants and telling them that you will collate the ideas that they have shared and the activities that they have selected to undertake into a Team Work Plan, with each person's roles and responsibilities clearly set out. Tell the participants when they can expect to have the plan. Give yourself a realistic but challenging time frame for this.