Pre-wiring meetings
Smart leadership or quiet politics?
Many meetings and presentations can often fail before they even get started.
Walking into a meeting hoping to convince leaders, or your team, of a course of action is usually too late.
Even with a solid slide deck or a tight agenda shared in advance, people often arrive cold. They probably haven’t read it. They feel ambushed. They probably dig in because they have not had any real time to think. The room might turn to debate rather than making a decision. Or worse, you end up mandating, begging, bribing, or leaning on authority - “the board wants this, it needs to happen”.
I have been there. Years ago, a Deputy Head tried to convince me and a group of Middle Leaders to take on the responsibility for leading the House system. There was enthusiasm and even the House cup filled with sweets as an incentive. It still went nowhere.
Pre-wiring fixes that.
It means doing the thinking work before the meeting, not inside it.
Done well, pre-wiring can help in three ways:
You build early support
You identify who might block progress and why
You realise an idea is a non-starter and avoid the meeting/item altogether - Pre-wiring helped me realise it was important to delay the launch of a new tool until Term 2
I first came across pre-wiring through the Manager Tools podcast. I see it less as a tactic and more as disciplined leadership - the work you do with people beforehand so nothing important is a surprise in the room.
For me, the aim is simple. I want to know how people are likely to react before the meeting starts. Not so I can win, but so the meeting can move forward rather than sideways, or not happen at all.
What pre-wiring does:
Removes surprises. I already have a sense of where people stand
Builds buy-in. Early conversations turn critics into contributors
Surfaces roadblocks. People are far more honest one-to-one
Shortens meetings. The thinking happens beforehand so the meeting is about deciding, not debating
How I do it
I identify who really matters. Not everyone in the room, but those whose support or resistance will shape the outcome
I have short, informal conversations. I frame them as sense-checking rather than selling
I tailor the message. Different people care about different things and pretending otherwise is naive
I listen properly. If someone raises a valid objection, I adjust the plan or address it openly. I have even asked people to raise concerns in the meeting so they are dealt with head-on. Knowing they were coming meant not being blindsided
I usually follow up briefly so people can see their input landed.
There are different versions I use regularly:
A boss pre-wire so nothing goes upstairs cold and there is clarity about what will be discussed and what is likely to be decided has already got approval
A peer pre-wire to build alignment and avoid being isolated in the room
A team pre-wire so public messages are aligned. This is critical in protecting those I line-manage. I often do a quick run-through of their meetings to ensure what they present will land with their teams. I’ll even send them to check in with one or two potential blockers.
Testing ideas with participants before training sessions or meetings I am leading
Done badly, it looks like politics. Machiavellian manipulation, which is not the intent.
Done well, it respects people’s thinking and time. It makes meetings tighter, calmer, and more productive.
As Martin Luther King Jr. put it, “A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a moulder of consensus.”
By the time we meet, the decision should not be new. Only the confirmation should be.