Team meetings are a crucial part of any business, but they can often be ineffective or even dreaded by employees.
Team meetings are not social gatherings, exclusive clubs, time sinks, dating pools, negative energy constellations, dreamer domains, obstacle courses, war-zone minefields or tongue traps.
Here are some tips for making team meetings at work more productive and engaging.
Productive team meetings
Business managers can improve meeting productivity through preparation, leadership and participation. So, how to make meetings productive?
- Purpose. Decide on your purpose. Is the meeting an informational meeting or a decision meeting?
- Participants. Select participants. Holding a meeting is pointless, if the people with necessary information are not there.
- Location. Choose an appropriate location. This refers to the physical location, time, room temperature, ventilation, acoustics, refreshments, etc. All these elements may seem trivial, but they can make or break a meeting.
- Agenda. Set and follow an agenda. The success of any meeting depends on the preparation of the participants. Prepare at least a list of matters to be discussed.
So, what would you do when during a meeting, the topic of conversation keeps wandering off the agenda. How do you keep the meeting on track? Or, at your last meeting, three people monopolized the entire discussion. What might you do at your next meeting to encourage other members to participate?
Effective team meetings
The characteristics of effective teams include having have clear sense of purpose, communicating openly, reaching decisions by consensus, thinking creatively, staying focused and resolving conflict effectively. Here are five steps of running a successful team meeting:
- Focus. Set a meeting agenda. What? Who? When? How?
- Procedures. Allot appropriate time. Start on time. End on time.
- Participation. Allow enough time for all the main ideas to be heard. Take notes on action items and decisions (who, what, when, how). Manage time carefully and anticipate delays. Build buy-in and group loyalty. Have fun with the task and with each other.
- Closing. Summarize conclusion or list the actions to be taken. Summarize orally and make meeting time a team member.
- Follow up. After the meeting, make sure all participants receive a copy of the minutes.
Preparing messages for team meetings
Effective team message requires from the team members to be flexible and opened-minded, need to get organized, select a leader and clarify goals, must agree on the purpose of the project and the audience, must plan how the document will be organized and formatted, and choose a writing style.
Here are the tasks involved in preparing effective team messages:
- Select the team members wisely.
- Select a responsible leader.
- Promote cooperation.
- Clarify goals.
- Elicit commitment.
- Clarify responsibilities.
- Foster prompt action.
- Ensure technological compatibility.
- Apply technology wisely.
Listening during team meetings
Effective listening allows you to stay informed, up-to-date, and out of trouble. It increases the impact when you do speak and gives you a negotiating edge. It also supports valuable relationships. The listening process involves five steps: receiving, interpreting, remembering, evaluating and responding.
Types of listening:
- Content listening. Understand and retain the speaker’s message. Information flows from speaker to you. Do not agree or disagree, approve or disapprove, only understand
- Critical listening. Understand and evaluate the meaning of the speaker’s message on several levels. Understand and evaluate logic of the argument, strength of the evidence, validity of the conclusions, implications, and speaker’s intentions and motives.
- Emphatic listening. Active listening. Avoid the tendency to offer advice or judge. Understand the speaker’s feelings, needs, and wants that you can appreciate his or her point of view.
Since almost half of the time spent communicating is listening, it is important to overcome obstacles that obstruct listening and find ways to improve our listening ability.
Barriers that interfere with effective listening:
- Prejudgment. They distort message by tuning out anything that does not confirm their view of themselves.
- Self-centeredness. No matter what subject is being discussed, they know more than the speakers does, and they determined to prove it.
- Selective listening. Stay tuned out until heard a word or a phrase that gets your attention once more.
Barriers to listening are anything that interferes with our ability to listen. Two basic categories include internal and external.
- Internal barriers deal with the mental or psychological aspects of listening. Examples include perception of the importance of the message, emotional state and tuning in and out of the speaker by the listener.
- External barriers are barriers other than those that deal with the mental and psychological makeup of the listener that tend to keep the listener from devoting full attention to what is being said. Examples include telephone interruptions, visitors, noise, physical environment, etc.
Writing during team meetings
Collaborative writing is based on team members, strong leadership, cooperation, applied technology, compatible technology, prompt action, clear responsibility, solid commitment and clear goals.
Word choice reflects the relationship between you and your audience. Here are eight recommendations for writing more effectively:
- Use Plain English.
- Be clear.
- Address international correspondence properly.
- Cite numbers carefully.
- Avoid slangs and idioms.
- Be brief.
- Use short paragraphs.
- Use transactional elements. Words and phrases (in addition, first, second, etc.) to help readers follow your train of thought.
Critique writing includes clear instructions, purpose of the document, correct factual materials and unambiguous language.
After the meeting, send out a meeting summary or follow-up email. This will help everyone stay on track and remember what was discussed. Also, get feedback on the meeting. Ask participants what they thought and how you can improve future meetings.
Team meetings – Evaluation
Let’s take a look at advantages and disadvantages of team meetings.
ADVANTAGES of team meetings:
- Makes work more effective and efficient.
- Stimulates creativity and energy among employees.
- Increased information and knowledge.
- Increased diversity of views.
- Increased acceptance of solution.
DISADVANTAGES of team meetings:
- Some situations are not appropriate for teams.
- High cost of coordinating group activities.
- Some team members may be free rider’s attitude who do not contribute.
- Some team members may have hidden agenda such as private motives that affect the groups interaction.
- Groupthinking. Members are pressured to conform because belonging to the team is more important to them than making the right decision.
Additional tips to make team meetings successful
Here are some additional tips for making team meetings more effective:
- Use icebreakers or team-building activities to get people warmed up.
- Make it fun! Use humor, games, or other creative techniques to keep people engaged.
- Be mindful of different personalities. Some people are more introverted than others. Make sure everyone has a chance to be heard.
- Celebrate successes! Take the time to acknowledge the team’s accomplishments.
In summary, the way a business organization performs as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual employees in the world, but if they do not play together, the company will not be worth a dime.
