Team Meetings – Why have them?

Do you have regular team meetings? Are you getting any benefit from them? Or are you canceling the meeting more often than you hold it?

2020 saw a change in the way most companies held regular team meetings – some were dropped altogether whilst others increased with the sudden uptake of online meetings. Is 2021 now bringing back bad habits or introducing a better way of working together?

The answers to these questions vary significantly from one organisation to another, and if your company is struggling with effective meetings then you might need to rethink your approach.

Firstly, why are you having the meeting? If there is no purpose, or the purpose is vague then no-one will be motivated to attend nor contribute. If your team wants to meet regularly, make sure you are clear on the purpose of the meeting and attendees have the agenda in advance to make the meeting as efficient as possible.

For example, a manufacturing business may hold a daily production meeting to address bottlenecks for the day ahead. A project management company may have a weekly meeting to review progress and confirm the plan for the next week worth of activities. A sales team may review leads monthly or weekly depending on the sales cycle of their market.

In her book ‘The 25 Minute Meeting’, Donna McGeorge talks about reducing the duration of meetings to ensure they are efficient and effective. If you only have 25 minutes then you need to make sure you address the key topics, and then free up the team to go get some work done.

Before your next meeting try sending all attendees the Purpose of the meeting as well as the Agenda items for discussion.