Team meetings are very important for your business. For a lot of companies, they are the only period when everyone can sit down and discuss particular issues, due to the fact that it is the rare opportunity when they get to meet outside their own offices altogether.
So, it is essential that you make the best use of every one of them, and make sure that they are motivational and full of energy, so that everyone has the desire to engage and exchange their own experience and advice, and that you can all together look for solutions and come up with strategies that can solve particular business issues.
Have a purpose
Every meeting needs to have a purpose, otherwise, it is just a waste of time for both you and your employees. Setting up a meeting allows you to accomplish a great number of things. This is the perfect moment to assess how your business and all your business strategies are working out. It is also an opportunity to evaluate how each team member is handling their tasks, and give them a hand if they need one. During a meeting, you need to underline your mission statement and remind your staff about their goals. This especially goes for team goals.
Be the leader
You are the leader of the meeting, so it is up to you to dictate the overall mood and create such a working environment where every team member can participate. The worst solution is to slack when it comes to meetings and try to settle important things via phone calls, online chats, and private conversations. You need to make sure that there is a team meeting on a weekly basis. First, help your employees relax through discussing something personal, and then move on to the reason why everyone is there. This way everyone will be motivated to contribute to the meeting.
Plan ahead
Preparing an agenda for the meeting is crucial. If you don’t do so, you will not be able to focus on what is really important, and the meeting will prove to be fruitless in the end. While it may seem like a waste of time sometimes, a meeting agenda makes sure that you and your staff are on the same page. Furthermore, you can ask your employees to contribute. Let them pitch in their ideas a few days before the meeting. However, never ask a team member to make the agenda for you. Don’t forget that you are the leader, and if you want others to know what is important, you have to elaborate on what matters to you.
Brainstorm
It is common during meetings that when a particular problem is being discussed, the debate escalates and people start blaming each other for certain mistakes, fearing that if they take the blame, they will be reprimanded. The best way to make sure that there are no pointed fingers and unnecessary arguments is to make the best out of brainstorming. Elaborate on what the issue is, offer a solution that might work, then allow your team members to discuss and solve it. Keep them focused on the main goal. Make use of window displays or glass panels to note down all the ideas that you and your team come up with.
Make sure no one is neglected
It goes without saying that often not every team member will have the same contribution as others, or will feel hesitant to share their thoughts. Your job is to make them feel like they are a part of the team no matter what. Give them the motivation to form and speak out their opinion. This is the way to make everyone feel like they are taking a part in the meeting. After all, the point of every meeting is for plans and issues to be discussed, not just recounting of information and statistics. Have copies of your team agenda printed out and in the hands of every team member, so that they all can familiarize themselves with what the topics are and participate more easily.
In Summation
It is essential that you don’t make your team meetings a boring and fruitless agenda. Every meeting needs to be planned ahead and given a purpose. You are the leader, so you need to act as one, but you should also make sure that everyone feels comfortable with stating their opinion. Present an issue, and allow your team members to brainstorm ideas.
