How You Can Get The Best From Your Team Meetings

The benefit of regular (preferably weekly) team meetings should NEVER be overlooked. From a results-driven point of view through to team morale and a common purpose, these meetings can be pure gold for your business.

Some businesses we come across don’t have regular meetings with their team. It’s just not something they’ve thought of, or perhaps they’ve considered their business is too small. In my book – two counts as a team. So unless you’re really a solo flier – team meetings are relevant for you too! They provide a valuable forum for you and your team to update, communicate, handle any issues, and set the scene for success and achievement in the business for the week to come.

Getting your team together at the same time each week might seem impossible at first – but once the habit’s set you’ll find yourself and your team beginning to look forward to the meeting. It doesn’t need to be a long meeting – anything from 30 minutes to one hour max.

It helps to time your weekly meetings to occur just before a deadline (eg. lunchtime, 1 hour before closing, … or 1 hour before starting!) This will reduce the chances of running overtime.

Once your meetings are scheduled, our 7 point checklist will ensure you and your team get the most out of each and every meeting:

7 point checklist for weekly team meetings

1. Have an agenda
If you’re going to make this meeting productive and effective, have an agenda and stick to it. (Make sure you’re aware ahead of time of anything and everything that needs to be covered).

2. Set the meeting up
These meetings are often about addressing challenges, what new stuff has to be done next week and what wasn’t done in the last week. This can sometimes feel like hard work. So set the meeting up by starting “upbeat”. Have everyone share one specific good thing that happened during the week (personal or business). As well as offsetting any negativity, it’ll help to get to know eachother and give everyone a pat on the back. At first this can feel a bit uncomfortable, but stick with it and make sure everyone takes part.

3. Reporting the Results
Go over the results for the week. Make sure your statistical reports are standardised. Graphs are a great way to do this. Your team will be able to see the trend in the numbers and whether or not they are hitting targets.

Beware of targets that haven’t been met as this can cause a reaction within your team (not to mention you!). It’s a good idea to acknowledge the breakdown and it’s a great time to look at what can be done to remedy it – opportunities to build on it … what’s going to make the difference in the next week. But remember – this is not the place for “beating up” a team member that is repeatedly under-performing!

A note on reporting the results: Create some milestones along the way – don’t just wait until the end of the project for you and your team to celebrate!

4. Customers and Team
Review whether there are any recurring problems that your team or customers are dealing with. These can either be handled on the spot (if it’s an easy fix) or you’ll need to investigate it later (but not too much later) …. and make sure you let everyone know the outcome.

5. Brain storm
If there’s a problem or something your business is grappling with – use the combined brainpower of your team. You’ll be amazed how many new ideas you’ll end up with … and your team will feel pretty good about contributing in this way.

6. Keep a record
Don’t forget keep a record of who said they were going to do what and by when.

7. Finish on time
At the end of the meeting let everyone say a brief word or two that represents how they feel about the meeting. This gives everyone an opportunity to “complete” the meeting and move on.