A world class business team
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This is the second part of a three part series on how to build a world class business team. If you have been following this series, you will know that Part 1 is here.
Meetings are one of the most important ways that a business manager can achieve their business goals. In order to achieve them successfully, there are three main factors that I believe need to be considered:
-How to run meetings effectively
-How to make sure that all your people are getting the information that they need
-How to make meetings work well with your business goals and objectives
A typical business meeting
The first or second part of this blog series
This blog post will be the first of a 3-part series that will give you a quick and simple way to assess your meeting needs. As you might have guessed, the more that you use the tools and processes that we discuss in this series, the easier it will be for you to make better business decisions.
A little over a year ago, I started a new company and I had the honour of working with an amazing team of creative and tech geeks.
For the last 7 months, I've had the privilege of working closely with a team of people in an amazing team of developers and designers.
The company I was working for is a web agency based in the UK and their main focus was to help the best-known sports brands build a digital presence, a digital strategy and to develop digital projects.
So here I am, with an incredible team of people, all driven by their passion for their work, all driven by their ambition to be the best.
Digital sports brand UK
What was the point of even having meetings?
And yet, the thing that I found hardest to deal with was that, for one of our most ambitious clients, the meetings were completely and utterly ineffective.
What's worse was that the meetings didn't actually accomplish anything. The client would come to us, ask us for help, make all the necessary decisions, and then have no idea how to go about it.
If I told you that a few weeks into the project, our client had no idea where to start or how to make progress, then you would most probably say, 'What was the point of even having meetings?'
Now I'm not here to say that your meetings are a waste of time. That would be too much of a generalisation and you are welcome to have meetings and get things done.
The problem here is that our client's meetings were too unfocused, too short, too disorganised, and too inefficient. And you know what? Those were exactly the same problems that I was having with my team at the time.
Meetings are a way of organising all the work that we need to do, all the things that we need to discuss. The meeting is the vehicle for us to get all the things done.
Meetings are all about focusing our attention on a specific goal, so that we can all get on with making that goal happen.
A disorganized and inefficient meeting
What would happen if we used meetings to focus on all the things that we needed to get done?
What would happen if we had meetings that were focused on building a world class team?
Well, I can promise you that the work would get done a lot more quickly, that our client would know how to make progress and that we would have much more time to spend with our family, our friends and just living our lives.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the meetings we had weren't useful.
Of course, meetings are the only way for us to communicate with each other. But if they are the right kind of meetings, then they are a great way for us to talk about how we can achieve our goals.
Are your meetings a waste of time?
Now I'm going to be very direct with you: I don't think that your meetings are effective. I don't think that they are the right kind of meetings.
And I don't think that they are the right kind of meetings because they are a waste of time and they don't accomplish anything.
In this post, I'm going to show you a simple and easy way to evaluate your current meeting strategy, to figure out what your meetings are doing, and to figure out whether you need to make any changes at all.
If you follow along, you will have a good sense of what you are doing right and what you are doing wrong in your meetings. And if you do that, then you will be able to make the changes necessary to make your meetings a lot more effective.
So, here is my simple and easy way to evaluate your current meeting strategy.
What I do is that I ask you to answer three simple questions:
Meeting Strategy
What am I going to do?
What am I going to do?
How am I going to do it?
What do I need to do?
Now, let me tell you that this is a simple way to evaluate your meeting strategy and that you don't have to use it. It is not a way of evaluating the meetings that you hold. It is just a way of determining what you are doing with your meetings and whether or not you need to change anything at all.
What am I going to do?
What am I going to do is to evaluate your meetings.
I'm not saying that you will have to evaluate your meeting every week, but I would recommend that you do it at least once a month, if not every three months.
What am I going to do is to evaluate your meetings.
You should always ask yourself 'What am I going to do?' with every meeting that you have, just like you should always ask 'What is the goal?' every time that you get up from your desk.
What I would like you to do is to ask yourself the following questions:
'What am I going to do with this meeting?'
'What am I going to do with this meeting?'
'What am I going to do with this meeting?'
'What am I going to do with this meeting?'
'What am I going to do with this meeting?'
'What am I going to do with this meeting?'
That's what I'd like you to do: ask yourself these three questions for every meeting that you have.
And then I would ask you: 'What is the goal of this meeting?'
Now, as you know, if you are going to be effective in your meetings, then you need to ask these questions before you even start the meeting.
Before you even think about the subject that is on your agenda, ask yourself 'What am I going to do with this meeting?'
What is the goal of this meeting?
And that is really important. Otherwise, you are just wasting everyone's time.
But let's say that you have done that. You've done what you should have done. What are you going to do with this meeting?
What am I going to do?
What am I going to do?
So that's the first question. But how am I going to do it?
Well, that's where you can help yourself a lot, if you are really prepared.
You can do it by:
-Having an agenda
-Setting your expectations
-Giving everyone the information that they need
-Getting everyone involved
Get everyone involved
You will be disappointed with yourself when you go home
If you don't have an agenda, then you are going to spend the entire meeting talking about things that are already done.
If you don't set your expectations, then you will be disappointed with yourself when you go home.
And if you don't give everyone the information that they need, then they won't be able to get on with their work.
If you do these three things, then the meetings will work much better.
Now, I'm not saying that you should make an agenda that is going to take 2 hours to complete.
What I am saying is that the more that you set your expectations for the meeting, the better the meeting will be.
What am I going to do with this meeting?
If you are expecting the meetings to be productive, then the more that you prepare, the better the meeting will be.
The first thing that you should think about when it comes to meeting is: what are you going to do?
And then, the second thing that you should think about when it comes to meeting is: what is the goal of this meeting?
I was having meetings with the team where I would ask 'What are we going to do?' and I would get answers like:
-We are going to build a website
-We are going to do some social media
In conclusion, this is not how the meetings should be.
The answer should be something like: 'We are going to set a new process and work plan' or 'We are going to talk about X, Y, Z'.
After you have decided what you are going to do, the next step is to start working on it.
We are going to talk about X, Y, Z
In my previous example, I should've started working on setting a new process and work plan for the company.
Now, I will share with you my 3 questions that I ask my teams to start working on what I am going to do.
What is the goal of this meeting?
Do you want me to set a new process and work plan for you?
Do you want me to talk about X, Y, Z?
The answers to these questions should be like:
-Yes
-Yes
-Yes