| David Julian Price - Presentation Skills & Leadership Skills

How to be a Charismatic Chairperson – it’s more than running effective meetings.

April 4, 2026

| Presence/Charisma

In every workplace, on virtually any day, there will be one, six, ten, a hundred meetings and every one will be “led” by someone. Whether that person sees themselves as “chairing” the meeting or not, the other people do. And so every day throughout the world there are tens of thousands of people chairing meetings – it is perhaps the most common universal activity which occurs in workplaces in every part of the globe every working day.

What if you could find out exactly what your team really thinks of your meetings — using just three colours and sixty seconds? Use the traffic light system.

| Decision Making

Here’s how the traffic light system works: at the end of a meeting, ask every person present to rate it – green for “this meeting was a good use of my time,” amber for “mixed – some value, some waste,” red for “I could have been better employed elsewhere.”Rank your agenda items by priority to improve your meetings

Does your meeting have a clear drummer setting the pace — or is everyone playing to a different tempo and wondering why nothing gets decided?

Every piece of music has a drummer setting the pace. It’s the same in meetings and it is not necessarily the chair. Who’s the drummer in your meetings?

There are the two words which determine whether you move forward, stay still or move backwards?

There are the two words which determine whether you move forward, stay still or move backwards? Are you a “yes, but” person or a “yes, […]

Cut in half

What actually happens when you cut your meeting frequency in half — and why could this be the most productive experiment your team ever runs?

Imagine if your meetings ran in half the time. What would that do to productivity?

Looking at watch

How did one team shrink a two-hour meeting down to 25 minutes — without cutting a single important agenda item – and make it a more effective meeting.

It takes drastic change and a willingness to change to create effective meetings. But it can be done. Move some items to outside the meeting and efficiency can skyrocket.

Psychological Safety Net

Google’s research says every high-performance meeting has one thing in common – psychological safety – it’s not desirable, it’s essential in every meeting

A few years ago the term psychological safety would never have been used ain a discussion about meetings. Now it’s an essential part of every meeting whether it is spoken about or not.

Two simple stories about managing time could change the way you see your organisation’s culture?

The way an organisation looks at time can be very telling. Few businesses in my experience, look at time, through the customer’s eyes. Managing time is more important than you may think

Robert's Rules

Before you adopt Robert’s Rules of Order, it’s important to know why Australians may actually be better served by something else entirely?

Robert’s Rules of Order is one of the most frequently cited and least understood procedural frameworks you’ll encounter — particularly in Australian meetings

What if a little more formality in your meetings was the unlikely fix you’ve been overlooking all along?

Adding a bit of formality has the potential to improve your meetings – but you have to do it in the right way. It needs a really good chair. Don’t be put off by the nay sayers. Formality on your meetings can be biggest productivity boost you could apply.

What if the biggest thing standing between you and better meetings is your own reluctance to change them?

The biggest barrier to better meetings, is the boss, or chair, who wan’t consider another approach. They to get out of the way and let other people with new ideas have a trial meeting – you may be surprised at what happens.

Organising meetings

Do you know exactly who is responsible for organising meetings in your organisation right now?

| Managing & Organising Meetings

If you ask this question, chances are no-one will know, or there will be a range of answers from the boss, the PA the minute taker, or most commonly – Fairy GodMother. And that’s the problem. No-one knows whose job description says “organising meetings”

Angry meeting

How an external impartial chair manages difficult situations in challenging meetings

| Chairing Meetings

Ever been in a situation where a very insistent person does not agree with how a meeting is heading and refuses to accept the will of the majority? Their tactic is to keep asking questions that are designed to rattle the group so the discussion and decisions go their way. An external impartial chair can manage this.

What if you could reduce your meeting time without cutting a single agenda item. It’s called En bloc

| Clear, practical guidance on meeting procedure from Australia's leading meetings expert — motions, voting, points of order, and everything in between.Meeting Procedures

En bloc simply means “as a whole”. It’s a very effective technique to deal with a range of items (which have disagreement) as one motion or one decision.

Not Another Meeting!

Not Another Meeting! Smarter Meetings Start Here: Six Keys That Actually Work Virtually everyone in the working world attends meetings. Staff meetings, management meetings, planning […]

If a machine broke down, you’d get it fixed

April 3, 2026

If a machine broke down you’d get it fixed. Why not fix your meetings? Let me ask you something. If a piece of equipment […]

Is sitting in back-to-back meetings actually part of your job — or does everyone just assume it is?

April 2, 2026

A senior executive sat across from me recently – impressive career, multiple board roles, significant responsibility – and made a remark I haven’t stopped thinking about.
“Some people,” she said quietly, “justify their salary by having meetings.”
It was said without malice. She wasn’t ranting. She was making an observation she’d reached after years of watching organisational behaviour from the inside. And the more I’ve thought about it, the more I believe she’s identified something genuinely important. Meetings are sometimes just part of the job.

Is your team so focused on one person’s opinion that they’ve stopped thinking for themselves? It’s called sunflower bias.

October 18, 2021

Is your team so focused on one person’s opinion that they’ve stopped thinking for themselves? It’s called sunflower bias. Walk through a field of sunflowers […]