How to Hold Effective Staff Meetings
By Steve Kaye |
Many people believe that they conduct effective meetings, when all they really
do is host a party. Or worse, they deliver a monologue. In either case, their
meetings produce little.
Here’s how to hold an effective staff
meeting:
1) In general. Keep them short. Most staff meetings
should last less than an hour. You want your staff to spend their time working
on things that earn money for your business, not sitting in meetings. Keep them
positive. Negative meetings contain insults, ridicule, and attacks. These
activities create caution and resentment, which always costs your company money.
Keep them interactive. Your staff consists of intelligent people. Put them to
work in your meetings to advance the effectiveness of your
organization.
2) Share news. Give the members of your group one minute to
report on progress made in their area of responsibility. You’ll find that this
results in bullet point reports of essential information. It also prevents
people from philosophizing, explaining, justifying, criticizing, and engaging in
other unproductive activities. Plan a time budget: 8 to 10 minutes.
3)
Teach something. Invite a guest expert to give a 10 minute presentation on some
skill or technology that benefits your group. Tell the expert that you want a
logical explanation of practical ideas. You can also ask members of your group
to take turns delivering brief tutorials on topics that benefit the others. Plan
a time budget: 10 to 15 minutes.
4) Practice skills. Create team learning
activities that sharpen or teach skills needed in your business. For example,
you could role play job skills (especially useful for sales teams), solve
puzzles (useful for high tech groups), or take quizzes (useful for everyone).
Ask group members to take turns bringing an activity that reviews or teaches a
valuable skill. Follow this activity with a brief recap of key ideas. Then ask
the group members to give a fifteen second report on how these ideas can be
applied to improve their work. Plan a time budget: 10 to 20 minutes.
5)
Solve problems. Give each group member a minute to describe a challenge that
hinders work on a current project and then let everyone propose solutions.
Suggestions should be brief and free of self aggrandizing explanations or
motivational sermons. This process also requires a positive, supportive
environment to succeed. If this is used to ridicule, insult, or criticize the
individual, then people will be reluctant to reveal issues that need attention.
Plan a time budget: 3 to 6 minutes per person.
About the Author
IAF Certified
Professional Facilitator and author Steve Kaye works with leaders who want to
hold effective meeting. His innovative workshops have informed and inspired
people nationwide. His facilitation produces results that people will support.
Call 714-528-1300 or visit his web site for over 100 pages of valuable ideas.
Sign up for his free newsletter at http://www.stevekaye.com
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