"Now that our roles on the team are getting clear, it seems like our weekly team meetings aren't that effective. How do I decide when we should meet and what we should meet about?"

Let’s make meetings better . . . or as I like to say, make meetings matter.

WHAT SHOULD WE MEET ABOUT?

What happens at necessary meetings? People are dialed in, focused and engaged. If you aren’t seeing that kind of response, then you need to ask, “Is this meeting necessary?” 

A recent meeting I attended was all about reading the status report. Then, on the last bullet something surprising happened. Questions emerged. Discussion started. People were engaged. Who knew that this status report would turn into a rich conversation? 

Well, maybe we could have known because the last bullet was something new. That was the CLUE! Anyone in the room could have probably identified the last bullet needed discussion before the meeting even started. 

So, if status updates isn’t a good enough reason for a whole meeting, then what necessitates a meeting?

Well in my story – the discussion on that last point really needed a meeting. It was a topic that required some collaborative problem solving, sharing of ideas, evaluating how it was working and deciding on how we wanted to make a minor shift.

What are the things on your meeting agenda that gets people sitting on the edge of their seats ready to contribute, where ideas are flowing and better decisions are made? Those are the things that should get on your whole team agenda. Find another way to communicate the rest.

A NOTE ABOUT “WHO”

You probably used to need meetings to collaborate because there was more fluidity in the roles and in the discussion you were able to decide who was going to do what.

Team roles are getting clearer now. Not everyone needs to be involved in the same level of detail. 

It’s a tricky transition – try this. Take your typical agenda for the team meeting. Create three columns on your paper and divide your agenda items into one of these columns:

• Whole team discussion and collaboration
• A subset or working group 
• Empower that leader to decide in their specialized area

WHEN SHOULD YOU MEET?

One team that used to meet weekly moved to every other week and started using the in-between week for work groups.

What I like about that is you aren’t just adding the working meetings onto the weekly meetings. I’ve seen that a lot as organizations grow they start adding more meetings – that are needed – but they don’t subtract (or re-evaluate) other meetings. It starts to impact productivity when we have too many meetings. 

If you want your meetings to meet the needs of your team and be worth the time, you need to facilitate them well. 

• Set an agenda in advance – even a framework that you repeat every meeting
• Start it on time and end it on time
• Use a parking lot when discussion gets off topic
• Don’t be afraid to pause and delegate a complex topic to a separate group 

That doesn’t mean it isn’t relational!!! You don’t want to lose the camaraderie of the whole team that you’ve gained up til now. Nurture the relationships because everything hinges on that.

Links to check out:

• Send your question HERE – in writing or by recording 
• Blog Series on Meetings
• Michael Hyatt’s No Fail Meetings
• Episode 6: Leading Differently in a Remote World with Christa Hutchins
• Learn more about Annie