Too many meetings…
A long time ago in a previous life I went to loads of meetings.
Corporate-type meetings – leadership team ones, departments ones, multiple project ones and even some off-site ones with the occasional over-nighter.
I must admit some were a waste of time. Plus, on some days the meeting schedule controlled my work-day.
I’ve been living in SME world for about 15 years and there is one meeting that I love. In fact for many clients I have ‘encouraged’ them to start doing management team meetings.
Sound boring and not revolutionary. Yet most small owner-managed businesses don’t do it. Here’s the big reasons why those businesses are losing out:
Are you guilty of this?
Mind-reading is still beyond most of us: I often hear business owners say ‘I thought they would have known that’ or ‘they can sort that themselves’ whenever a colleague does something wrong. Unfortunately, your colleagues aren’t the best mind-readers. Weekly catchups are important to organise priorities.
Nobody is accountable for anything: Imagine this – You set a goal to grow the business by 15%, tell the senior leaders in your business and they are very supportive. Then you say the growth will need a whole-team effort and everybody agrees. Fast forward and nothing has really happened. Best intentions fell by the wayside and you only kept yourself accountable. Keep your meetings frequent and clear to make it easier to hold your team accountable for progress.
Delegation is a far-away dream: Doing it all by yourself is a fools errand. Whilst you may think you are, you’re not an expert in everything. Be sure to delegate work frequently to keep you focused on running your business. Otherwise you are stuck in the proverbial Owner’s Trap. Learn more about this here.
Ideas and proactivity live in your head: Inspiring your team will encourage proactivity – you don’t have to run the business all in your head. Keeping meetings frequent and clear will keep your colleagues in the know and allow opportunity to flourish.
Here’s what you’re missing
Put these reasons another way: by not having regular management team meetings you are:
- Not utilising the talents and abilities of your senior team.
- Forcing yourself to be the busiest employee who is always to blame for whatever goes wrong.
- Constantly putting out fires, slowing you and your business down.
- Becoming disenfranchised with your business.
If reading this is inciting stress. You and many other business owners are not alone. I strongly encourage you to check out my recent blog on ‘Finding help as a business owner’.
How to fix your meetings
I’m no management guru with a library of books to my credit. I prefer making things happen, so I love using other’s models and tools that I know work.
The best management team model I love and use comes from the Entrepreneur’s Operating System (EOS®). Called ‘The Level 10 Meeting™ ’ it is super focused on getting things done:
- Making accountability the norm.
- Removing all that going off on tangents.
- Not losing track of all those ‘to do’s we forget to do.
- Spending really important time fixing issues by using the power of the team mind.
Try these resources
I have attached a Pdf of the Level Ten Meeting™ to get you thinking. Why call it that name? Because we all want to have a really good productive meeting and 10 out of 10 is the aim. And you should rate each meeting you have.
Have you found this helpful? Read our blog about Owning Your Business.
Read about the The Importance of Cash Flow.