coaching and mentoring - Patti Cotton

How to Revitalize Your Team Meetings — Image Credit: Shutterstock

Team meetings can be a source of frustration and an incredible waste of time. When I address execution with executives, needing more time is the biggest factor they cite.

Here’s what I hear:

“HUGE waste of time. We don’t get anything done!”

“We address things we could have taken care of by ourselves.”

“The same people always talk – and the same people always zone out. What am I here for?”

How do you make sure your meetings are productive and effective?

Here’s a quick checklist to set a firm foundation:

1. Determine the purpose for your meeting.

Are you meeting to keep your team informed of the trends in your industry? To problem-solve? To build rapport with one another? Be sure that you have this firmly in mind as you build your agenda. Take care that you do not turn team meetings into work sessions when this could be handled more efficiently outside the meeting.

2. Have an agenda with defined objectives.

Please select topics for your meeting that affect the entire team. Other issues should be held back for a time when you can meet with only those who are involved. Then, for each item listed on the agenda, list what you need from the group. Are you sharing information, seeking input for a decision, or needing to make a decision during the meeting? It’s challenging for team members to concentrate on the item at hand if they don’t know what you need from them as you address it.

3. Action items and accountability.

As you address the agenda items, make sure you bring each to a successful conclusion by listing any actions needing to be taken, the person/people taking those actions, and a deadline by which they will complete the action identified. Then, decide whether they need to report back to the group in a next team meeting, or if it is more effective simply to report back to you or the others involved in the issue.

4. Cut down on the attendee list.

Who really needs to attend? And if someone is invited because they are giving a spotlight presentation only, schedule this at the beginning or end of the meeting and let them know when to be present. Don’t have them wade through your entire meeting when it isn’t necessary. Take a quick sweep of your meeting agendas and check your attendee list. This needs to be done periodically so as to make sure that those who are invited really need to be there.

5. Prepare your attendees.

Send out your agenda at least 24 hours in advance and let them know to expect this as a rule of thumb. When you send this out, identify for them what you will be needing from them in the meeting. For example, do you want them to problem-solve a certain issue confronting the organization? Include some background beforehand.

6. Start on time.

This seems elementary, but I’m going to flag this as one of two biggest time-wasters with the world of meetings (the other one is found next, in #7). Waiting for one or two people sends the message that your time and the time of others is not valuable. It also reflects on you as being less than effective. Do you have someone who is chronically late? Address this with them privately. If they are allowed to arrive late on a regular basis, this also sends the message that your meeting is not of top priority.

7. Stick to the agenda.

Allowing team to stray from the agenda reduces effectiveness. If someone brings up an issue or problem that needs solving, but is not part of the agenda, place this in “the parking lot.” Have someone keep track of any parking lot issues by making a note of them. Then, if urgent and relevant to the team, address these at the end of your meeting if there is time or announce the plan to address these before you adjourn.

8. External check-in.

Ask your team to assess the meetings on a scale of 1-10. What will make them better? More relevant? More effective? If you are receiving feedback that your team meetings are a waste of time, you may discover that you seek to meet simply out of habit or out of a false sense of accomplishment from having met. Be honest with yourself – and go back to defining the purpose of your meeting.

Finally, as a team-building exercise, you may want to gather up the team and ask them what they would like to get out of these meetings. Such a session will no doubt surface ideas that will be helpful to you going forward.

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Patti Cotton

Patti Cotton reenergizes talented leaders and their teams to achieve fulfillment and extraordinary results. For more information on how Patti Cotton can help you and your organization, click here.

How to Pull Your Business Results Out of a Rut — Image Credit: Shutterstock

You are a great leader and you treat your people well. You are doing all the right things – coaching and mentoring, teaching people how to solve problems, giving regular feedback… You practice the five daily good management habits we talked about last week (if you missed it, here is the link).

Your employees are happy, and you are well loved. Those who work for you express how fortunate they are – and those who don’t, wish they could.

So why are your business results in a rut?

Five things may be standing in your way. Here is a quick checklist for you and your executive team to use. Where might you be stuck?

1. Do your teams and individual contributors understand how the company vision relates to their area of responsibility?

This seems elementary, and your employees may be able to articulate the vision. After all, it is “front and center” in all your materials, your meetings and retreats. But do they understand how their area of responsibility relates to this vision?

If your staff doesn’t understand why their area of responsibility exists to support the forward motion of the entire enterprise, this needs to be where you start. When people cannot grasp how their individual contributions help to make a difference to the whole, people may be comfortably happy, but they will not have that focused sense of purpose related to the business. Eventually, this disconnect will foster complacency or a lack of motivation that will lull your employee base to under-perform.

2. Do the goals provided to your teams and individual contributors support the company vision, goals, and objectives?

Many a great business has grown quickly and taken on projects and initiatives that may no longer be valid to the goals and objectives you have at present.

I recently worked with an enterprise who asked for my help in increasing productivity and revenue. While performing some due diligence, I discovered that part of the workload assigned to many of their employees was not supporting the direction of the company. This situation occurs often and can be identified and corrected to support higher performance and better results by conducting a yearly work audit using your company’s strategic plan – but that’s another entire article!

3. Do your employees have clear action plans that support their goals?

Has your executive team worked with their reports to outline clear plans of action for the year that relate to meeting goals?

This exercise not only ensures that each employee knows what he or she should be doing to support the company direction, it can also be used as a tool to teach them how to think more strategically, solve problems, and hold themselves accountable (not to mention, a great trust-building exercise).

4. Are the metrics assigned to these goals the ones that matter?

This is where a lot of businesses stall. You need to measure in order to assess progress.

However, too many businesses commit to too many change initiatives at the same time, rendering them overwhelmed and stalled. You may collect a lot of very useful data, then, but won’t do anything with it, wasting time, energy, and money. Consider selecting 1-2 key areas or business approaches that will give you the most return, and work on these until you have incorporated them into your business culture and way of operating. Once you have done this, reassess, decide where next to improve, and repeat the process.

5. Are your employees able to execute well?

Do you have the right staff in place, and are they able to perform well so that the action plans become excellent results?

This is where we go back to the daily management habits of successful leaders (see last week’s article on this, here). Are you providing the right tools and resources for them, and are you operating with mutual trust and accountability? This is where we separate the good from the great – and what I’ll be writing more on, next week.

Where in the five points above, do you and your company excel? And where might you do a better job? I look forward to your comments.

Patti Cotton

Patti Cotton reenergizes talented leaders and their teams to achieve fulfillment and extraordinary results. For more information on how Patti Cotton can help you and your organization, click here.