Leadership team meetings are an essential part of effective business management. Productive meetings set the priorities and goals for organisational and people development, helping to achieve results across all areas. However, to foster optimum performance in your team meetings, it is important to know how best to run them.
Here are five key considerations that can help you to run effective and productive leadership team meetings.
1) Prepare and Follow-Up
It may seem basic, but a well-structured meeting with a clear agenda is vital for achieving what you want in the time you have set aside and making sure that everyone is on the same page when it comes to what is being discussed. When the agenda is set, be sure to send it to everyone in advance so they have time to prepare as well.
Follow-up is equally important. Ensure that notes are taken throughout the meeting, covering any action points, and agreed deadlines. These should then be communicated out afterwards so that no one is in any doubt about what they are accountable for.
2) Start With the Positives
Whilst there may be some difficult details to thrash out during the meeting, it's always good to start on a positive. This helps to set the tone for an effective meeting and goes a long way to boosting motivation and engagement. Often, leaders can come into team meetings in the mood of their last call or after a difficult conversation and their thoughts and feelings are tied up elsewhere. Try sharing some good news from the last week or since the last meeting, ask your colleagues to share a few positives from their day so far, or something they’re excited about or are proud of achieving and see how it effects the atmosphere and productivity of the meeting.
3) Be Open and Honest
As important senior figures in the business, everyone’s time is precious, so don't waste it with ambiguous conversation. Transparency can be difficult, but ultimately it is the best way to ensure productivity and effective problem-solving. When it comes to holding each other accountable, don’t let things get derailed, if someone repeatedly arrives late to the meeting, certain people start to hijack the conversation, or you feel the team isn’t fully engaged, you owe it to yourself, and to everyone else in the room who is giving up their time, to call out the behaviour.
When it comes to discussing tough issues, be sure to prioritise and assign adequate time to them in the meeting. Before getting into a lot of discussion, try to identify the heart of the problem to make sure that you’re spending time talking about what really matters. It’s also important that everyone in the team gets the opportunity to have their say and that you’re focussing on identifying tangible solutions to overcome the issues, as opposed to looking for people or things to blame.
4) Keep To Time
Ensuring your meetings start and end on time avoids disruption to people's days and shows respect for busy diaries. To help stick to time, have clear goals in mind, and keep discussions tight, avoiding tangents. Make sure you cover the most important points first so that if something doesn’t get discussed due to time constraints, it is the least important thing on the agenda.
5) Be Consistent
The topics under discussion may differ at each meeting, but the process should not. Keeping a disciplined and consistent approach to leadership meetings means team members know exactly what to expect and how to get the best out of the time available. Aim to have meetings at the same time and on the same day each week or month, if possible, as this helps people to carve out a consistent slot in their diaries. Having regular meetings as a senior team sets a good precedent, meaning critical issues or actions never wait too long to be discussed.
Leadership Training From GRA
GRA's leadership development training is carefully tailored to help you develop the skills you need to manage activities such as team meetings more effectively. Our training is ideal for seasoned managers looking to enhance their leadership skills or for first-time managers just starting out in their careers. Get in touch with one of our team today to find out more.
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