NOVEMBER 2014
SPOTLIGHT www.dakotasupplygroup.com
Tom's Current
What If We Could Get Rid Of Meetings? There is nothing like a boring, unproductive staff meeting to make a Friday feel like a Monday. Everybody hates them, right? Wrong. Everybody doesn’t necessarily hate staff meetings; they hate boring, unproductive staff meetings. Unfortunately, there is still no replacement for periodic meetings to get your team on the same page. Trust me, I’ve tried every alternative, and they all leave too much to chance. Take email, for example. Use a professional email service to deliver your messages to your staff once or twice and watch the tracking numbers on how many get opened. You will surely be saddened by the results. Oh, you can try to skip meetings altogether, but that plan comes with its own set of consequences. Get ready to hear “I didn’t hear about that” so much that your ears will ring. No, meetings seem like a necessary evil in today’s business. On the other hand, maybe it’s not meetings that are so bad; maybe you’re just doing a bad job of having meetings. There is an interesting article on Fast Company’s web site that gathers input from a group of the world’s most innovative business leaders about making meetings
mean something without boring everyone to sleep, and their comments include some really good advice. Keep it novel. In other words, mix up the scenery a little bit. Instead of the break room, have everyone stand up in the shop or take them down to the nearby park. Just don’t do the same thing every time. You might be surprised at how much easier it is to keep everyone’s attention if the meeting simply looks and feels different. Don’t squander youth. It can be tempting to discourage your younger team members from participating too much in meetings. However, your newest employees very often have their ears closest to the street. Try to utilize their energy rather than discouraging it, and you may find that it’s contagious. Say it in 5 words. This is a good way to get to the point of a meeting faster. If you’re looking for input from your team on an issue, limit each person’s initial response to 5 words only. This forces everyone to put some thought into their responses (and it’s kind of fun to see what people come up with). Get them laughing. The meeting’s leader doesn’t need to be a stand-up comedian, but lightening the mood often results in a more positive exchange of ideas, which is almost always more productive. Give these ideas a try, and maybe you’ll come up with some of your own ways to make meetings more productive. If so, I’d love to hear them. After all, the best meetings are the ones that get things done.