“A great strategy meeting is a meeting of minds.”
~Max McKeown

Would you like to have more productive, effective, and shorter meetings in your office?

In the below article by MaryEllen Tribby, you’ll learn terrific strategies for group and one on one meetings, and ultimately, “how you can gain an extra 10 weeks of progress in your business per employee!”.

Turning Wasted Hours into Cash
By MaryEllen Tribby- Published on Working Moms Only on December 16, 2013

The average amounts of time junior and mid-level employees spend in business meetings is 8.4 hours a week.

Let’s keep doing the math . . .

That 8.4 number of hours a week equals 33.6 hours a month and a staggering 403.2 hours a year! Think about that. If your team is working on a 40-hour workweek, that’s over 10 weeks of time they are spending just in meetings.

And, that number only increases for executives. According to Harvard Business School, executives spend 18 hours per week in meetings.

So, ask yourself right now, is it worth it? Are you getting your desired return on investment (ROI) for that meeting time?

Most likely you are screaming “NO” in your head.

Your Keys to Productivity and Profitability

Think about it. Time is our greatest commodity. It is something we can never get more of. It is something if spent correctly can make us happy, healthy and wealthy. And, it is something that if spent poorly can make us miserable and broke.

It is critical that you use that 10 weeks of meeting time to turn your company into the best company it can be.

And the fact of the matter is, in order to grow and be a profitable company with multiple team members, meetings are a necessary reality.

So, let’s do them right!

First, let’s talk about the kind of meetings you need to have to run a great company.

As the CEO of your company, you can basically break your meetings down to three types:

•   Staff meetings
•   Project/franchise meetings
•   One-on-ones

The following chart clearly indicates the meeting type, who attends, the frequency and the purpose:

* If you have more than 50 employees, your staff meeting should be every other week. If you have more than 100 employees, your staff meeting should be once a month.

The New Rules of Meetings

If you really want your time to count, make sure every meeting has the following:

•  A start AND end time that is not on the hour or the half:  Most folks schedule meeting right at the top of the hour and many on the half. So they schedule for 2:00 or 2:30. But to get the most out of your meeting, you should start scheduling your meetings at 2:05. This sends a clear message that you are protective about your time and everyone should be respectful of your time and their own time as well.

Also, by stating an end time, you keep the meeting moving. It is clear that this is business and not a social session.

•  Create and provide an agenda: Whoever scheduled the meeting should create a detailed agenda (or assign someone to create the agenda). This agenda should be emailed to all attendees prior to the meeting. It should actually be sent by COB the day before so that all attendees can come to the meeting prepared. They may also have items to add to the agenda.

•  Everyone should bring a POA sheet to the meeting: POA stands for Plan of Action. The only reason to have meetings is to move the company forward. If only a few people have a POA after each meeting – perhaps you need to reevaluate if you have too many employees or if you have the right employees.

One–on–one meetings are for all people who manage someone else. Regardless if this is new for you or if you have been doing it for years, you need to ask the right questions to your team.

The following are the questions that you need to give only to your executives. They should come into the meeting with all these questions already answered.

Team: One-On-One Prep Form

Name:
Date:

•  What is the most important thing we should be talking about: (list three)
•  What key projects are you working on? (list three)
•  What have you accomplished since we last spoke? (list all)
•  What isn’t working right in our organization, yet. (list all, in order of priority)
•  What is the largest long-term opportunity facing our company?
•  What could you be doing about it this month?
•  What is the most important decision you’re facing?
•  What’s keeping you from facing it?
•  What single thing could you do this month to bring the most value to our company?
•  List your direct reports and rate their effectiveness on a scale of 1 – 10 for this month
•  Update on key goals
•  List 30 day priorities
•  List action items with due dates

This will not only be a tremendous help to you, but it will give your entire team a clear understanding of how they are doing on his or her own.