Management for Beginners - Meetings, how to run.
No one likes meetings; one of your challenges is to get team members to ‘want to come’ along to your meetings because they have real value. If you do not already hold one, a weekly team meeting is essential for managing and developing your team.
The meeting needs to be an important event in your diary, ideally not to be missed or rescheduled. The best time of day is just before lunch as this allows for an open-ended finish time, which encourages team members to focus more to finish quickly. Aside from being an essential general management practice, this meeting must focus team members on matters such as staff, performance, productivity, customer satisfaction, service, and quality.
Using a standing agenda
A ‘standing agenda’ is an agenda that contains the same topics each week. A sample is shown below to which you can add your own topics. The standing agenda also acts as a template that team members should use for their own weekly staff meetings (if the team members have their own teams.) This facilitates consistency of approach and dissemination of the same information to all staff. (This makes for transparency of information except for where a matter is commercial in confidence).
Standing Agenda
Date.
Attendees.
Previous Minutes.
Review actions from previous minutes.
Day to day management items.
Items that you regularly discuss or have been added for this meeting.
Staffing.
Poor performing staff, recruitment activities, current and planned training initiatives.
Customer Satisfaction.
Discuss any favourable or unfavourable customer comments.
Projects/Strategic initiatives.
Update on projects performance (schedule, cost, delivery). Limit to projects that are running behind schedule.
Managed Services (Outsourcing contracts) review.
Issues, disputes, financial and outstanding matters with external providers.
Other Business.
Around the table, open discussion on any subject.
Managers Notepad.
Managers new work items.
Minutes.
Minutes are a formal record of the ‘Actions’ to be undertaken; discussions are not recorded. Minute’s format is usually Action/Owner/Due date.
Decision Register
Decision registers record decisions that otherwise tend to get lost and forgotten in the minutes. Each decision should have a home somewhere else, such as in team rules or policies. The minute-taker ensures that decisions are passed on to an appropriate Decision Owner for recording elsewhere.
Tips for a good meeting
Make up a handout of the ‘Tips for a good meeting’ shown below. Discuss the handout and make a point of noticing each team members reaction. Try to identify early adopters (they look pleased with the news and accept change) and those who may need more individual persuasion (they look surprised or concerned, are resistive to change).
· Try to meet in the same room each week.
· Try standing up instead of sitting; it makes for faster meetings.
· Have presentation/video/communication facilities checked to ensure they are working before each meeting?
· Have a rotating chairperson to allow each team member the opportunity to gain experience with this skill.
· Have the last person who arrives take the minutes as arriving late is unprofessional. Minutes should only contain action items and should be issued no later than the following day after the meeting.
· Absent or remote team members to attend by video or phone.
· No war stories, no discussions about similar experiences that don’t add value.
· Hold the meeting early in the day, just before lunch. This allows for an open-ended finish time. As the team becomes more focused, the meetings will get shorter.
Actions
1. If you do not already have a weekly team meeting, you need to establish one.
2. Do a meeting invite and issue the agenda.
3. Make up a Handout of the ‘Tips for a good meeting’ and discuss with the team.
Summa
1. Weekly team meeting. - Is essential for managing your team. This meeting is also crucial for the team-building process. The meeting needs to be an important event in your diary, ideally not to be missed or rescheduled. Aside from being an essential general management practice, this meeting must focus team members on matters such as staff, performance, productivity, customer satisfaction, service, and quality.
2. Meeting standing agenda. - Add your management items to this agenda as required. The agenda is a standing agenda – meaning that it contains the same topics each week.
3. Decision Register. - Decision registers record decisions that otherwise tend to get lost and forgotten in the minutes. Each decision should have a home somewhere else, such as in team rules or policies. The minute-taker ensures that decisions are passed on to an appropriate Decision Owner for recording elsewhere.
4. Tips for a good meeting. - Make up a handout of the ‘Tips for a good meeting’. Discuss the handout and make a point of noticing each team members reaction.
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