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The agenda, the minutes, and the obligation to say something
A German meeting is more structured than its Anglophone equivalent and less of a discussion. Knowing the structure is most of what you need. There is an agenda, die Tagesordnung, and it is usually followed in order. Items are numbered and referred to as TOP 1, TOP 2 — der Tagesordnungspunkt. Adding something on the spot is possible but asked for: Kann ich noch einen Punkt ergänzen? If you want an item discussed, get it on the agenda beforehand. There are minutes, das Protokoll, and someone visibly writes them. This matters more than a newcomer expects: what is in the Protokoll is what was decided, and a decision not recorded has a habit of not having happened. Writing them is a reasonable job for a new colleague and a fast way to learn both the vocabulary and who actually decides things — which is why Alex volunteering is a better move than it looks. Turn-taking is formal. People do not talk over each other much, contributions are often longer than in an English-language meeting, and there is no expectation that you fill silence. What there is, is an expectation that you speak at all. Sitting through a meeting in silence is read as having no view or not being engaged, not as politeness — the same point the English courses make about Anglophone meetings, and it is if anything stronger here because the meeting is where positions are formally put. Two smaller things. Punctuality is absolute: a meeting called for ten starts at ten, and arriving at five past is an event. And the end of a meeting is the end — decisions are recorded and then acted on, and the Anglophone habit of relitigating afterwards in a corridor is viewed poorly. If you disagree, the place is the meeting, using the moves in this lesson. One practical tip for a first meeting in a second language. Prepare one contribution in advance and say it early. It is far easier to speak a sentence you have already built than to improvise into a gap, and once you have spoken once the rest of the meeting is much less frightening.