How to Hold Effective Staff MeetingsWritten by Steve Kaye
Many people believe that they conduct effective meetings, when all they really do is host a party. Or worse, they deliver a monologue. In either case, their meetings produce little.Here’s how to hold an effective staff meeting. 1) In general. Keep them short. Most staff meetings should last less than an hour. You want your staff to spend their time working on things that earn money for your business, not sitting in meetings. Keep them positive. Negative meetings contain insults, ridicule, and attacks. These activities create caution and resentment, which always costs your company money. Keep them interactive. Your staff consists of intelligent people. Put them to work in your meetings to advance effectiveness of your organization. 2) Share news. Give members of your group one minute to report on progress made in their area of responsibility. You’ll find that this results in bullet point reports of essential information. It also prevents people from philosophizing, explaining, justifying, criticizing, and engaging in other unproductive activities. Plan a time budget: 8 to 10 minutes. 3) Teach something. Invite a guest expert to give a 10 minute presentation on some skill or technology that benefits your group. Tell expert that you want a logical explanation of practical ideas. You can also ask members of your group to take turns delivering brief tutorials on topics that benefit others. Plan a time budget: 10 to 15 minutes.
| | Quick Tip - Effective Meetings Earn a ProfitWritten by Steve Kaye
Most people treat meetings as a free resource that can be used to deal with any issue. As a result, huge amounts of time and money are wasted on trivia. A meeting is a business activity (not a social event) and should be designed to earn a profit. Here’s how. Once you’ve prepared goals for your meetings, use following analysis to plan agenda. 1) Calculate cost of meeting by multiplying number of participants (N), their labor rate (R), and length of meeting (t). Then add all other expenses (E), including travel, materials, refreshments, room rental, and other expenses. Cost = N * R * t + E 2) Estimate value of results expected from meeting. For some issues this step will be easy. Resolving a manufacturing inefficiency, for example, could save thousands of dollars. Or developing an effective strategic plan could earn millions.
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