It’s true that some meetings should’ve been an email, but it doesn’t have to be yours. Learn the different considerations that can help you plan effective team meetings all the time.
Did you know that some business owners believe that team meetings are a waste of time?
I was one of them.
You see, I used to dislike how meetings took me away from my tasks.
But I realized something:
Team meetings are actually multiplying my time.
That’s because when I meet my team and give them instructions about tasks, we can all do things simultaneously. I can use the meeting to delegate instead of just doing the tasks on my own.
This is something you can do as well.
But the catch is, you have to make sure the meeting is conducted properly. Otherwise, you’ll be wasting your time instead of multiplying.
In this article, you’ll learn about what it takes to plan effective team meetings. Particularly those that can help you maximize your time and productivity.
But first, why do team meetings at all?
3 Big Reasons for Team Meetings
One important thing to remember about meetings is they should be done for the right reasons. And I believe you should only conduct team meetings to answer 3 questions:
Question #1 – Are our priorities in check to hit our goals?
Make it your primary concern to check your team’s progress when it comes to your goals.
You have to reiterate what the priorities are to reach your targets. After all, there are many tasks you all need to do to reach your targets. But there are also key tasks that have to be prioritized.
So, see if all these priorities are being met.
Question #2 – Are we on track with our goals?
It’s not enough that priorities are being met – it also has to be met at the right time. This is why you have to check if the team’s on track with everything.
If things are going well, you have to take note of what your team is doing right so you can make it happen again.
But if not, then you have to solve that problem during the team meeting to make sure you’ll get back on track. In case it’s not possible, then you might have to move the timeline of your goals.
Question #3 – Does anyone need support to achieve specific goals and priorities?
The last key reason to conduct team meetings is to find out if anyone needs help in meeting their goals. So, it’s important that only those connected to a particular goal are present in the meeting.
During the meeting, you have to ask each team member if there are areas in their task that they’re having trouble with. Even if the people on the team have different tasks, one delay can compromise the whole goal.
Remember, if you can answer these three key questions during your team meetings, then it won’t be a waste of anyone’s time.
8 Considerations When Conducting Team Meetings
Even if you have the right reasons to conduct a team meeting, there are still eight important things to consider before you push through with it.
Consideration #1: Right People in the Room
As mentioned, everyone in the meeting should be after the same goal. Anyone who’s not directly connected to the pursuit of that goal shouldn’t be in the meeting.
Take note that this could also mean that you, the owner, don’t always have to be part of team meetings. You may only need to be present in critical meetings.
Consideration #2: Frequency of Meetings
When we first created our program, Well-Oiled Operations™, we had weekly meetings because we were gathering feedback from clients.
But once we fine-tuned everything and things were going smoothly, we changed the frequency of the meeting to a meeting every 90 days. After all, we didn’t need to meet that often at that point.
Make sure you’re getting the right frequency for the meeting. Give your team enough time to make progress in between meetings.
Consideration #3: Length of Time
Your meeting shouldn’t be held after too long or too short periods of time. If it’s too long, that means you might eventually have to set more meetings in between. But if it’s too short, your meetings may be too frequent and won’t always be productive.
Also, if you set the meeting to run for 2 hours and it only took 1 hour, end it. Don’t waste time on small talk.
Consideration #4: Meeting Leader
Every team meeting should have a designated leader. This leader will decide who should be in a meeting, how often the meetings should take place, what needs to be discussed, etc.
As the owner, you don’t have to be the meeting leader. In fact, I don’t advise it because if you’re the meeting’s leader, your schedule will be tied to these meetings. But if someone else is leading it, you can go on a vacation and the meetings will still go smoothly.
Consideration #5: Agenda
This is something that should be defined before a meeting. If there’s no agenda, there’s no reason for the team to meet at all.
Just make sure the agenda is relevant to the goals and is something that can’t be discussed in an email.
It’s the meeting leader who’ll determine this agenda. And they’ll need to make sure the meeting only talks about the agenda for that day– nothing else.
Consideration #6: Assigned Accountability
Have someone take notes during the meeting to ensure that tasks are assigned to the right person. Don’t let the meeting leader do this since they’re already busy presiding over the meeting. Someone else should be taking notes.
The assigned accountability should be clear because you don’t want to follow up one day, only to have someone say, “I thought he was doing that.”
Consideration #7: Get It On the Calendar
Meetings have to be put on the calendar to avoid being forgotten. Ideally, you should have a team calendar so these meetings can be plotted on it and the right people will get an alert when the time comes.
This would also ensure that key people needed in the meeting won’t schedule something else on the same time and date.
Consideration #8: Location
Choose the most convenient location so everyone is sure to attend the meeting.
If everyone’s in the same place, then this should be easy to arrange. But if people have to come from different places, just do the meeting online. Do it via Zoom so there’s hardly any reason for people to skip the meeting.
Make Every Team Meeting Count
Team meetings are very important because they can help everyone work cohesively towards a common goal – but only if you do it correctly.
Make sure you have the right agenda, frequency, location, and people attending that meeting. If not, then you’ll be wasting both time and money.
It’s time to start conducting effective team meetings that’ll make your business incredibly successful.
Schedule a free strategy session with one of our scale specialists so we can help. Book a call here: www.stacytuschl.com/call.
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