In business, the one activity that happens more than anything else is meetings. Be it face to face, over the phone, or skype these days, meetings take a lot of our time, and real estate is no different.
I am introducing hereby an approach that I like to call the CORN approach. Wait, what does corn have to do with business? Read on...
What is CORN?
CORN is a term that I have just coined. It stands for Cause, Objective, Results, and Next steps. Each part can be written in the form of lists, or just plain notes. CORN doesn’t just apply to meetings and conferences. You can apply CORN to any activity as small as a phone call to an old friend to something as big as a flip project.
C is for Cause
What caused you to attend the meeting or call? It may be as simple as "My boss told me to do so", or it could be a list of issues you and/or your organization have been facing that necessitated it.
Sometimes you attend a meeting or conference in response to an advertisement you came across. Nonetheless, there was something in it that attracted you to this particular meeting and not the others alike.
O is for Objectives
Have you noticed that in a lot of training sessions and seminars, the first question you are asked is why you are taking the course? What do you want to take away?
Your objectives can be derived from the cause, like solving the problem, or taking back a feedback to your boss, etc. Your list of objectives, your purpose, should be longer, in fact BIGGER, than the just addressing the causes. You want to address the cause and add something more.
R is for Results
How did it go? Did you achieve what you intended to achieve? Did you gain the something more? Your Cause and Objectives can be used as a checklist to track results. Ideally and hopefully the results should be larger than just solving the problem and meeting your objectives. In addition, you may want to list down what went well, what you missed, what could have been better, and what shouldn't have happened at all.
N is for Next steps
The next steps come out almost automatically when you look at your Cause, Objectives, and Results. However writing down a list of the immediate next step(s) can take that burden off your brain and help you break down a huge daunting project into tiny little actionable steps that you take and tick off.
When to write?
Of course it would make sense for you to write down your Cause and Objective before you enter the meeting. But I suggest writing it down a day before the meeting. Imagine, you are attending a seminar and when asked why you are attending, you read off a list from your pocket. That will tell a lot about your organizational skills and laser-sharp focus.
When it comes to the Results and Next steps I recommend writing them down the same day while you still have it fresh in your memory. Of course you can’t do that if right after the meeting, or even during it, you got piss-drunk. In that case you know the results already! ;-)
Happy CORNing!
