The first time it happens, you might be devastated. There’s a meeting scheduled that directly impacts the work you are doing but you don’t get the Outlook invitation.

Your first reaction is to think there’s been a mistake but when you check with your boss, she says she’ll catch you up later. Ouch! This seems absurd ─ why aren’t you included in the meeting so you can hear the conversation first hand? She’s busy and not very good at following up so you know this means you’ll have to stalk her to get the information you need to do your job. As annoying as this may be, if you expect that you’ll automatically be on the guest list, you may be delusional.

The good news is that it’s probably not personal. It may be that people at your level aren’t being included. It may be that your boss thinks you have already have enough to do. It may that the conference room is too small to accommodate all the interested stakeholders and since you’re the least tenured you lose at the game of musical chairs. In any case, if you feel strongly that you should be there, you’ll have to do some investigating and then make the case for yourself.

• Learn as much as you can.
  Try to determine the meeting objective, who’ll be there and exactly what is on the agenda. If your boss is the meeting organizer, it’ll be easier for her to include you than if she is merely an invited guest. Do you think you were intentionally excluded or merely forgotten? If it is the former, then you may want to back off. If she’s not running the meeting, then you may want to give up graciously on this meeting but ask her to suggest that you be included at the next one.
• Figure out how you can add value.
  What business benefit will your attendance offer? Is it that you will be able to turn your work around more quickly? Will your work be better? Is so, how? Is it that you’ll be able to save your boss the time and effort to bring you into the feedback loop? Is it that you’ll be able to work more efficiently with the other people on the team because you were at the table? If you aren’t very clear on the reasons that the business will benefit, then leave it alone.
• Follow through on the “ask”.
  Pick a time when your boss is available, and, armed with the business benefits to be derived, ask to be included. For example, you might say, “Since I’ll be making the changes to the project plan based on the input we get at Wednesday’s meeting, I was hoping that I might attend. If I do, I’ll be able to turn the document around by Thursday afternoon so that you’ll be able to review it on the plane. What do you think?”
  Even if your boss says no, she’ll most likely offer you a reason and you’ll know more than you did before. In addition, she’ll probably include you the next time, since you took the proactive step to let her know you are interested.

When you are included in a meeting (even if you didn’t have to wrangle the invitation!) be sure you understand what role you will be playing. Are you there as a participant with the expectation that you will be asking questions and offering your opinion or are you there merely as an observer? If you don’t clarify your role ahead of time and overstep, you’ll find yourself on the “out list” before you know what happened.

TAGS: excluded, included, invitation, invited, LinkedIn, meetings