The purpose of work is to achieve the company mission. It requires clear communication, defined expectations, and collaborative relationships. Meetings can support or take away from the work.
The value of a meeting is determined by the facilitator.
What is the purpose of the meeting? What do you need to accomplish?
Coaching: discuss behavior or performance standards
Decision Making: gather feedback and insight; discuss if this, then that to unpack potential risks or challenges
Inform/Q&A: ideal for sharing company goals set by the leadership team, welcoming new team members, addressing questions for new policy or process. This ensures the team is on the same page and moving in the same direction.
Collaborate: generate and build upon ideas, brainstorming + refinement for project
Training: showing the process to set the standard, role-playing through client service scenarios
If you’re talking most of the meeting, you can send it in an email. People don’t want to be talked to or read at. And a present body doesn’t create anymore buy-in than a read email.
Make the purpose clear when inviting people to attend. It helps set expectations for how to show up and engage.
Your role is to safeguard your team’s time so they can focus on the most important things.
Is the meeting necessary? Or can it be discussed in an email or project thread? Or is it status quo and can be removed or redefined?
Whose attendance is necessary? Key decision-makers may be necessary when needing to authorization or permission, but even then this can be done after the meeting with a quick summary and request via email.
The overemphasis on “including everyone” contributes to overwhelm and distraction. Allow people to stay focused on their priorities.
It may be “nice” to have them present or have their input, but if their contribution holds no weight on the purpose of the meeting don’t waste their time.
If the decisions of the meeting impact their role, send or post a meeting summary to keep them informed.
The more people you have in attendance the more opinions you’ll have in the discussion. This is where good ideas get discussed to death. A great meeting is decisive so the team can take action with clarity and speed.
Keep meetings to 45 minutes or less, ideally 30 minutes. Short meetings make it easier to stay engaged, focused, and take action afterward.
When the purpose of the meeting requires more time include a break in the middle. Typically these meetings are held fewer and far between. Some examples include annual goal planning, strategy planning, company wide training, etc.
I bookend my meetings with 15 minutes.
15-min before: prepare so i can be fully present and best serve those attending.
15-min after: use momentum of the meeting to follow up and take action.
Do attendees know what to expect and how to prepare? When sending out the calendar invite I include the purpose of the meeting, and request any additional questions/talking points be submitted one day prior to the meeting.
Below is my invite format. It makes it easy for recipient when responding and managing their calendar.
COACHING: Melissa K. Jones x [Team Member’s Name]
Q&A: New Service Offering
COLLABORATION: Design Team
What needs to be prepared for the meeting to be successful? What do attendees need to prepare or bring? If you need attendees to read a report or resource, include it in the invite with instructions for the meeting.
If everyone isn’t prepared, consider postponing the meeting to make the most of everyone’s time.
Weekly Team Meetings
SCENARIO: The easy default option for weekly team meetings is to have each team member provide a status update on their project. While that seems good, what is the benefit to the team?
SOLUTION: With a good project management system in place, everyone can see the status. And with a high-performing team, you can trust the accuracy of the statuses and verify when necessary.
What you can’t see is the context surrounding the project and client relationship. This context creates value in the meeting when leveraged for team coaching.
When you read through the status updates for the past week…
where are there opportunities to refine skills or behaviors?
where is additional education needed about a process or tool?
where can team members collaborate to create a better outcome? who can be mentored by a senior team member?
what is a recurring issue and needs a new solution?
This type of conversation creates engagement and elevates your team’s performance. It has greater return on time, than sharing status updates out loud.
Create an outline of the discussion points (bulleted) prior to the meeting and share with the attendees.
The discussion points reinforce the purpose of the meeting, create structure, and support focus. And it’s another way to help attendees prepare so everyone makes the best use of their time.
Your responsibility is to fulfill the purpose of the meeting. Being on time and prepared supports mutual respect and trust.
Start the meeting promptly on time. This means 9:00 am, not 9:05 am. Waiting indicates it’s “ok” to be late and takes away time from achieving the purpose.
End promptly. Running late creates a negative domino effect on everyone’s time.
Keep the conversation on task using the agenda. Eliminate tangents and be mindful of the clock.
EXAMPLE: “Thank you for your feedback/comment. Let’s discuss it separately to give it full attention and to make sure we stay focused and achieve our meeting goal today of XXXX”
If something new needs to be discussed, make a note of it. It can be discussed at the end of the meeting, if there is time, or tabled for the next meeting.
What needs to be completed to support the purpose of the meeting? This is where the 15-minute bookend comes in handy. 😉
Share a summary of the conversation and key decisions to keep everyone on the same page. It confirms what was decided and gives everyone a resource to refer to.
Add and assign tasks, if applicable.
Respond to tabled conversations via email, a quick call, or add them to the agenda for the next meeting, depending on importance.
Use the momentum from the meeting to get started or continue on a project. This momentum is extremely valuable, don’t lose it!
These follow-up practices support you and your team’s productivity. Without them it’s easy to lose focus and work to get delayed.
NOTE: Sharing a summary of the meeting doesn’t replace the responsibility of each person taking their own notes. Individual note taking, not AI, has a positive impact on performance (UIC). I highly encourage it.
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.