Meetings

You can love meetings, or hate them. But no matter where you’re from you have become an expert at attending meetings in your new country if you want to succeed. From job interviews to staff meetings, volunteer meetings to senior leadership gatherings and more, how you communicate during meetings in your new country will make or break your immigration journey.

Barriers

Now imagine this scenario. You are a new immigrant who wants to work in Canada. In order to get a job and keep it you’ll probably have to:

• Learn english
• Upgrade your education
• Deal with the reality that the first job you get will not be the job that you ultimately want and more

On top of all of this you’ll also have to learn how to be effective during every meeting that you attend. For example, if you don’t understand the way that most Canadians conduct a job interview meeting then it is likely that you won’t know how to act. So while you may have spent a lot of time on your resume, all of your effort could be wasted because you do something negative during the interview. The same concept applies to all of the meetings you attend once you get hired, as well as any volunteer meetings that you participate in.

Another problem (that you may not even be aware of) is that you are used to the way people conduct meetings in your home country. For example:

• India – Many people don’t mind interrupting others during a meeting
• Columbia – Many people will not question what the meeting leader says, because they have been brought up to not question the authority of their Catholic Priest
• Barbados – Quite often meetings don’t start when they are supposed to because they are on ‘bajan time’

So how can you quickly adapt to make sure that your next meeting is as effective as possible?

8 Ways New Immigrants Can Create Effective Business Meetings

When I did a Keynote Speech called “How To Be Effective In Any Meeting” for 150 highly educated new Canadian immigrants at the Smart Connections event for ERIEC (Edmonton Region Immigrant Employment Council) I learned just how tough it is for new immigrants to conduct effective business meetings. The feedback from the audience included:

– My ability to speak English is not strong enough, so I often don’t understand what the other person is saying
– Where I’m from you’re supposed to wait to be told what to do, and sometimes meeting leaders in Canada want you to speak up first
– A woman would never be leading a meeting where I’m from, so how do I respond to a female meeting leader here?

So, because my mission is to help everyone learn how to have more productive and inspired meetings, I have put together this practical guide to help new immigrants quickly adapt to any type of meeting in Canada, no matter where you’re from.

1. Be Self-Aware

Great business meetings start with you

If you understand the good and the bad about yourself, then you can avoid behaving negatively during a meeting, and you can also bring out the best you have to offer so you can make the meeting fantastic. For example, let’s say you’re a highly qualified Accountant from India, and here’s what you know about yourself:

• I’m really smart
• I work hard
• I don’t like it when people waste my time so I cut them off

To prepare for a job interview you will have to:

• Practice being patient
• Learn how to let the other person finish talking, no matter what they are saying
• Learn how to appropriately brag about your excellent work ethic and ability to deliver outstanding results

2. Learn The Meeting Basics

You should be aware of how people behave during meetings in Canada compared to the way that you conduct meetings in your home country. For example, people in Japan hand a business card over with two hands and bow their heads as they do this. Whereas in Canada people often toss their business cards on the middle of the table.

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