7 Ways to Beat the Boredom of Company Meetings
image credit: Viktoria Kurpas @ Shutterstock
Meetings Suuuuuuuuuuck!
Yes they do. You are right. I affirm your pain and boredom and deep feeling of ineffectualness when it comes to company meetings.
Imagine a world…where company meetings are productive, inspiring and invigorating, full of energy, and fun.
“STFU Alex.”
No, I’m serious. This is a laudable and reachable goal. I swear.
Meetings are a necessary part of running a successful business. You need to stay aware of morale, productivity and alignment. You also have to continually define point A if you’re going to achieve point B.
You have to know where you are starting from to get to where you want to go.
Is everybody on the same page? Do people feel productive, connected and valuable? Are you, as the head of your company, aware of the heartbeat of your business? Are there any irregularities in that heartbeat?
What kind of culture do you groom in your company?
These are important and necessary questions for every entrepreneur.
And there’s another reason why meetings are so important. Without meetings, growing and scaling your business is impossible. You need and must conduct meetings in order to leverage yourself, meaning spread yourself strategically.
Great companies happen because people are organized and supported properly. One way to organize people effectively is to get them all in the same room, virtually or physically and find out their roadblocks, goals and triumphs. To provide a space for everyone to get solutions, feedback and support.
If you want to grow and scale your business, you have to take the pulse of your company often. That is the purpose of meetings.
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What Are Productive Meetings?
You know me. I have a specific definition of productivity:
Maximum results with minimum effort.
So how does that translate into business meetings?
Getting maximum results in a business meeting looks like this:
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Discovering where every member of the team is focusing their attention
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Uncovering how every member of the team is feeling about their performance
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Seeing how every part of your business is functioning with every other part
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Focusing attention on any weaknesses in the chain
In order for me to achieve these ends in every single meeting I use a specific template. And I don’t ever deviate from it.
We all know what to expect and how the meeting will be run. That way there is little to no room for bickering, gossip or the other unproductive behaviors that can infect companies and meetings.
Successful Meetings Have Several Components
Successful meetings comprise several factors. They include:
- A de-brief from the previous week
- Planning strategies for the next week
- Numbers for each department
- Taking the company temperature
You have to measure your successes and failures. If you don’t measure you are not defining point A, where you’re at right now. If you can’t define point A you will never reach point B, which is where you want to be in your business.
Define where you are so you can figure out where you want to go. Create fun and productive business meetings and watch your company grow!
Click Here to discover how to craft powerful business meetings.>>
I follow an 7-step template for all of our company meetings. This process allows us to know exactly what to prepare for and helps manage expectations during the meetings.
7 Steps to A Productive Meeting
Step One: The Victory
I love to set my meetings and my team up for success. To do this for company meetings I always start each meeting with a round of victories. We go around and announce a victory we’ve each had that week. It could be personal or professional. And it really starts the meeting off with great energy!
“We finally closed on our house on Friday!”
“I signed that JV partner we’ve been pursuing!”
“I cleaned out my work email inbox!”
It can be large or small. Every win is important. I know it sounds silly and at first it even feels silly going around the virtual or real room announcing your wins. But week after week you’ll notice it starts everyone off on a positive footing for the meeting.
Morale is only talked about in a company when it’s not good.
But instead of waiting for morale to deteriorate give your meetings a weekly morale-booster. I’m not saying that announcing wins is going to stop gossip or mend miscommunications but it goes a long way to fighting off an infection.
Victories = Turmeric
Think of Victories as a small inoculation against a virus. Each little victory helps people feel positive, feel like they have a voice and humanizes each other. And it should only take about 5 minutes at most depending on the size of your company.
Step Two: The Score Card
“If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.”
— Peter Drucker
This is where each team member states their numbers for their department for that week. It could be how many unique visitors on the company blog to how many pre-qualified, premium client in-take sessions were done last week.
In my company we have several different departments: social media, membership, and premium client acquisition. Each of those departments has several numeric goals to reach or seek each week.
This is how we see what’s working and what needs improvement.
Step Three: The Headline
This is the section where we make announcements, specifically if I’ll be traveling, or if there is a special event coming up like a Mastermind. This is where we can also announce any new clients or members we’ve acquired.
It’s basically the section where we update everyone on company news.
Step Four: The Report
This is the section where each team member lists what they’ve achieved or completed for their department. Everything from installing new social media software to adding a new product to ClickFunnels to how many applications for membership we got last week.
This is a short section only meant to focus on updates of processes.
Step Five: The Issues
This is the nitty gritty. We break down sh**. If there is a problem: if someone’s numbers are lagging, if a team member is having a challenge getting resources, if a task is not getting completed, this is where we address it.
This is typically the longest section of the meeting but it’s also the most effective. Whatever issue comes up we all address it as a team. I love this section because we all brainstorm together.
In addition to each of us bringing our expertise to problem-solving we are typically addressing issues that not all of us face. Someone in membership is not expected to know about ClickFunnels software, etc. But this is where creativity happens.
People ask questions, think outside the box, brainstorm and throw ideas out that normally wouldn’t come up. And it’s typically our most exciting and fun part of the meeting. Even though we’re problem-solving everyone is excited to help and everyone brings something to the table.
Step Six: The Forecast
Notice all these steps have one thing in common: they are all defining Point A. Where we all were and are as a team and a company. Step six defines Point B, where we want to go.
Why spend so much time on Point A? If you don’t truly take the time to figure out where you are, you will never be able to define where you want to go and how you’re going to get there.
Every entrepreneur knows that problems arise every. single. damn. day. in your business. You cannot solve those problems if every department or person in your company are operating from different playbooks.
And you can’t stop problems from repeating if you don’t know how they arose in the first place. The way you figure out solutions and roadmaps is to define where you’ve been and where you are.
So, after we define where we are and do some troubleshooting then we define where we want to go. Step six: the Forecast is about defining Point B. Where are we heading as a company over the next week or so?
This is where each team member describes the following week’s focus for their department. If we have a book tour coming up for one of our clients, each department lays out what their tasks are, when they will execute those tasks and when those tasks will be complete. That system goes for each campaign, book tour, funnel launch, etc.
Step Seven: The Final Score
This last step is where each person in the meeting gives a score for how they showed up to the meeting and how they felt about the meeting as a whole. They score the game and they score how they played.
Meetings are either a colossal waste of time and zap people’s energy or they are inspiring, problem-solving and get people on the right track. Usually they are the former. The way to ensure the latter is to check-in with people about how they feel the meeting went.
Scoring also helps keep people accountable for how they show up to the meeting. Part of what makes meetings feel like drudgery is because people show up unprepared. But if they have to score their performance they will hold themselves accountable.
And having a specific format helps people know exactly how and what to prepare. They prepare their victory, their numbers for their department, any problems or issues they need help with and their goals for the next week.
If they come unprepared or they don’t get things addressed in the meeting they get to voice that. So don’t skip this step. The more your team members learn to be accountable the more they will show up for themselves and the team.
This whole template is designed to maximize integrity: integrity of each team member and the integrity of the company as a whole. That’s the beauty of the format.
image credit: http://managementeducationgroup.com/2015/08/boring-managers-and-bad-energy/
5 Mistakes to Avoid in Meetings
Mistake #1
An unplanned or unprepared agenda. When you introduce this new format to your team they will show up. Employees and team members as a rule want to do their best.
But if you, as the CEO or head of your company comes to a meeting unprepared that is unacceptable. Period. If you are not prepared for the meeting, it will go over time and that will bum everyone out.
If you forget to address something important because you didn’t write it down, the meeting will end in a deficit, meaning the problem will not get solved or an issue will go unaddressed.
The first time you, as the head of your company, come to a meeting unprepared expect that the next time everyone else will too. Always Be Prepared.
Mistake #2
Not creating a time limit for the meeting. Nothing drains people’s energy faster than a meeting that goes on and on. It creates a sense of uncertainty and restlessness in your team members. If there’s no time limit, no one knows how long the meeting will go and people will focus on that rather than the substance.
My weekly huddle with team members is an hour. Everyone knows how long to plan for, and how to structure their own spotlighted time in the meeting. Always have a time limit. This will cut down on wandering minds and eyes.
Mistake #3
No accountability. Accountability is built into the format of this meeting structure for a reason. People need to be held to account. When it’s done in a meeting format everyone becomes accountable to themselves publicly.
When someone isn’t accountable that becomes apparent quickly: they don’t show up on-time, they show up unprepared, etc.
But here’s the thing, humans like being accountable. So when you make it public and everyone is judged by the same criteria people rise to the occasion. They feel safer because they know the yardstick is for everyone.
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Mistake #4
A lack of consistency. Have your team meeting(s) on the same day and time each week. People love consistency so being consistent in your meetings will create a sense of cohesion and trust.
If you only have meetings when there is a crisis, that will only serve to feed a sense of disempowerment and fear in your team.
They will get the unspoken message that their voices are not important unless you are looking for someone to blame. Then it’s every person for themselves. The team erodes.
Being consistent in meeting format means that even when you are angry or frustrated or the team had a bad week you can all address it together. The meeting will become the place where people know problems will get solved not exacerbated.
Mistake #5
Mistaken identity. Your team is not your family. I use sports analogies in my work. My company is my team, our meetings are huddles. We have a playbook. There’s a reason I do this.
It helps me remember that the people in my company are not my family members and my company is not a family. it’s quite literally a team of people. That’s an important distinction, especially in small companies where people can develop close connections and friendships.
Those are important to a team but you have to always remember that you’re running a company and companies lose and gain new players all the time. Families are stuck with each other for life and that has its own challenges but companies operate differently.
The health and morale of team players is a vital part of a company but success relies on making decisions that prioritize the health of a company as a whole over its individual members.
The Wrap Up
It doesn’t matter the size of your company. If your company is a team of 5 people this format works. If your company has many teams and departments this format works. Even if you’re a solopreneur you can still use this format to inspire yourself, troubleshoot, define point A and map out point B.
You will always have to make hard decisions in your business. Team meetings, company meetings help diagnose and solve problems, hold people accountable and inspire and energize your players.
Having consistent meetings with this specific format creates meetings that don’t suck. Meetings that actually get things done and make people happy. Go do that.
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Do you use a specific meeting format in your business already? What steps do you take to ensure successful business meetings that don’t just put out fires? LMK below!
