How to Hold Effective Staff Meetings
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. 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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