Team meetings

Objective

Personal, one-on-one interaction is a vital part of how you manage your team – the ability to connect, listen and be seen to learn at an individual level characterises the leader who recognises the value of every team member as unique and distinctive. Equally, you need to manage your team as a team, and this represents the very different dynamic of speaking to potentially large groups of people, often in public or semi-public settings. This demands different skills, different preparation and a careful attention to detail. If you are addressing a group, you need to speak about the goals and values that will bring a disparate group of individuals together. This is where leadership really comes into its own, because the leader becomes the public persona – even the icon – for the organisation. Where one-on-one interaction demands the personal touch, so public presentation demands the power and drama of advocacy.

Effective leaders use team meetings to dramatise and evangelise their goals and values.

Context

You will have to manage a hierarchy of types of personal communication depending on the scale of your responsibility.

• Informal one-on-one meetings – generally ad hoc discussions, but always an opportunity to connect personally and to reinforce business approaches and values.
• Formal 121s – usually monthly and primarily an opportunity to review ongoing issues, goals and personal performance.
• Ad hoc group meetings – to discuss specific, time-defined issues, primary focus analysis and decision-making.
• Team meetings – mainly relevant where you lead a single function and bring together your key team members for operational and issue reviews.
• Management meetings – weekly, biweekly or monthly reviews (with set agendas) to monitor team performance.
• Thematic reviews – periodic reviews, to an agenda and timetable set by you, where you choose periodic assessments of key operational functions.
• Annual budgeting and planning – an opportunity to review strategies and cast plans for the next few years.

At the top of this hierarchy sits the team meeting where you address a group larger than your direct reports or immediate team. This is the biggest single opportunity to set the tone for your organisation.

Challenge

Make no mistake – team meetings can be scary, they can be risky and they can be deflating.

• Why scary? Speaking to any large group can be intimidating, and only the most reckless individual fails to recognise the associated stress for what it is. Some leaders are naturally less assured on their feet, and find it off-putting to dramatise – to over-emphasise the points they need to make. Some will feel self-conscious and may regard the formality of a public gathering more likely to create distance between them and their colleagues rather than create bonds.
• Why risky? Putting any group of people together is by definition unpredictable, and in any culture of openness it may lead to uncomfortable or unanticipated issues being raised. The risk here is that your agenda may be diverted, though the gains in openness usually outweigh the downsides of frankness.
• Why deflating? The opposite to unforeseen discussions can occur – the meetings where there is no response at all. You may feel that your words have fallen on deaf ears. This can be deflating because you may feel that this reflects on either your message or your delivery – though you should remember that your staff may feel as inhibited as you in public gatherings.

These challenges require guts, careful planning and resilience. Above all you must believe in their value, and in the end this belief will see you through.

Success

The most effective team meetings combine careful planning and attention to detail with a personal touch.

• Timetabling – where possible, unless the meeting is for a special announcement, advertise the meeting at least 48 hours in advance to allow staff to (re)schedule their diaries.
• Advance planning – if the meetings involve a series, advertise the dates on a rolling six-month basis.
• Remote attendees – if colleagues are dialling-in by teleconference, ensure both that the phone numbers are well advertised (e.g. via Outlook, WebEx or Google Hangouts) and that the speaker system is adequate. Up-to-date systems allow meetings to be recorded and uploaded to the internet for absentees.
• International attendees – if colleagues are dialling-in from overseas, be conscious of time differences.
• Location choice – obviously this is primarily driven by the size of the meeting. Generally, a setting with natural lighting and chairs is preferred.
• Meeting customs – you may host meetings in overseas countries and should seek to be briefed on different customs that might apply.
• Timeliness – start on time. Attendees don’t normally like being kept hanging around.
• Preparation – the contents and messages should be carefully thought through, and not delivered on the hoof.
• Delivery – the presentation of information should be structured to match the occasion. For example, regular meetings should be conducted informally, but irregular presentations (say of company announcements) can be more heavily scripted.
• Publishing the agenda – you should start by saying what you are going to cover. If the meeting is one of a series, you can distribute the full agenda in advance.
• Involving other colleagues – you should not assume that the meeting is for personal grandstanding – plan for other colleagues to speak about issues.
• Taking questions – questions should always be invited and answered directly – colleagues can always sense spin or avoidance!
• Repeat messaging – have no inhibitions about reinforcing key messages, you will be more believable for doing so.
• Action points – if actions arise from discussions you should commit to following them up and reporting back on progress at subsequent meetings.

The smart leader will closely involve key HR colleagues in planning and executing regular meetings events – they bear more closely on overall culture and morale than on anything else.

Pitfalls

Team meetings – as any meeting – will fail to achieve their purpose through poor planning or execution.

• Poor leadership – a lack of clear and consistent messaging will, in front of a large group, risk suggesting that you do not have a strategy or direction. This can subtly erode any sense of common purpose.
• Unplanned agenda – a meeting that is not carefully planned, and where you hop from one subject to the next, will fail to reinforce the messages that are important.
• Excluded attendees – team meetings can become extremely counterproductive when colleagues are unintentionally excluded, especially if they are remote and are not given the opportunity to dial-in or to have a separate presentation. In these cases the remoteness itself can alienate staff from core messages.

Team meetings incur some risk. Any leader worth their salt will ask for questions. This can provoke uncomfortable moments where sensitive issues are raised (e.g. salaries) or are simply unexpected. No one can prepare for all questions and there are three golden rules in dealing with them.

• When you know the answer, give it directly and truthfully – staff can always sense evasion.
• When you don’t know the answer, say so rather than waffle – and promise to get back to the questioner with the answer at a later point.
• If you know that the answer demands an admission of failure, say so – humility wins friends.

Leaders’ checklist

• Be committed to having meetings regularly – understand their role in leadership communication.
• Use meetings to hammer home key messages frequently.
• Plan the content, delivery and location of meetings carefully.
• Be sensitive to staff based away from your office and ensure that they do not feel excluded.
• Always be seen to follow through promised actions.