Do you ever feel like your team meetings have as much rhythm as an 80 year old on a cruise ship dancing to Jay-Z? Are your team meetings (whether you are a recipient or leader) growing stale and boring? Are your teammates drifting off, and thinking about their next meal versus being engaged? Do people regularly miss the meetings – and not for great reasons?
OR – do you find your team meetings to be AMAZING? They are exciting, energetic and engaging. Do you feel as though you have grown more intelligent and more excited about your business every time you leave your team meetings? Do people put the team meetings as a high priority, only missing them when absolutely necessary? Do your team meetings ignite the inner genius in the participants, and help propel the company (and themselves) forward to greatness?
Most people answer YES to the first scenario, or somewhere between the two. It’s very, very, very rare for employees to experience “AMAZING” in the area of team meetings. Here’s why: the old way of running meetings, with status reports, top-down communication, and/or information transfer sessions, are just that – old. Running meetings that aren’t collaborative and engaging are about as “uncool” as using two spaces after every sentence (yes – using two spaces after a period is a sure way to tell you are over 40 years old).
At a minimum, you should always: keep the meetings the same time each week, be on time, send an agenda, and plan ahead of time. Don’t wing it. If your team meetings need a beat, a better rhythm, and energy, then use these three tips to give your meetings an overhaul:
1. Ask your participants what is MOST IMPORTANT right from the get go. Ask your team what would be most important for you to hit in the meeting and write it on the whiteboard. This will get their attention from the get go, feeling as though they have input and you care.
2. Integrate stories (or a learning of some kind): whatever you do, don’t make your meetings a status report. Integrate stories, examples, and real scenarios that will engage your team. If you don’t have a relevant story, then have someone share one in the meeting. Humans are storytellers by nature – use what’s innate to help bring out positive energy.
3. Build a rhythm with a great weekly cadence, with various portions led by different teammates. An example is below:
Week 1: Review & Looking Forward
• Review of past month’s numbers
• Integration of the company story and vision
• Confirmation of upcoming monthly goals & accountability
Week 2: Client-focused
• Retention of clients
• How to provide a remarkable experience to clients
• For sales teams, this could be a pipeline review
Week 3: Educating your Team
• Education of your team (vendors coming in, product education, how-tos, etc.)
• Opportunity for team members to present
Week 4: Working Session, Setting Goals
• Working session based on a strong push for the end of the month
• Setting goals for the upcoming month
Week 5: Optional
• These only occur four times per year
• Make this a give back day
• Give the team the day off if they are exceeding expectations
Beyond that, there are a few tenets to always live by
• Always be honest with the team.
• Be as transparent as possible
• When the team is winning, celebrate the wins. When the team isn’t winning, make sure it’s known.
• You are not there to be their cheerleader; you are there to lead them.
• Start on time, end on time.
If you commit to these three tips and the five tenets, I guarantee your team meetings will improve – drastically. It’s up to YOU to put a beat back into your team meetings.
Misti Aaronson is the Executive Vice President and a partner at entreQuest. She utilizes her talents and expertise from working with countless organizations to help businesses grow through expert talent acquisition, growth methodology and development of their teams.