The Recipe For Great Meetings

By David Saxe, BBA, CPA. CA, CBC  – Certified Ownership Thinking & EOS Implementer

A few months ago I was approached by a new client because her management team could not resolve the long standing issues facing the company and the team was not focused.  Attendance at their periodic team meetings was a problem because everyone felt these meetings were a waste of time.

Most of us hate attending meetings because they tend to be boring, a waste of time, they last too long and very little is accomplished.  One of the first tools I implement is the Leadership Team Level 10 meeting.  This is a weekly, 90 minute meeting which is always rated at its conclusion on a scale of 1-10 scale, with 10 being the highest.  It has several characteristics:

  1. It is always held on the same day of the week and at the same time of day
  2. It always starts on time and ends on time
  3. It has the same agenda.

There are several benefits to holding meeting based on these characteristics.  The same day and time allows team members to block off that part of the week and eliminate most attendance conflicts.  It becomes a sacred time solely devoted to the L-10 meeting.  The meeting opens on time, with a quick review of the status of the quarterly goals, scorecard items, To Dos and Action Items.  There is no discussion on any item that is on track.  Any item that is off track is added to the issues list without discussion until it is time to address the issues.  Accountability is automatically built into these meetings because everyone on the leadership team knows they have one week to complete the “To Dos” generated from the previous meeting.  This develops the traction needed to accomplish their goals.

A fixed time and agenda ensures that a full 60 minutes will be devoted to solving the issues of the company and the meeting will end on time.  However, the most important element of a successful meeting is to add all issues that arise before and during the meeting, to the Issues list and only deal with those issues during the 60 minutes allotted to issue solving.  Allowing issues to be identified, discussed and solved only during that portion of the meeting ensures that the meeting stays on track and issues are dealt with in order of importance.

While it may seem counter-intuitive, this is the only way to stick to the agenda and to devote the appropriate time to solving the issues facing the organization.  There is an art to identifying, discussing and resolving issues.  That will be addressed in another article.

David Saxe, BBA, CPA, CA, CBC

The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive™ Team – Accredited Facilitator

Certified Ownership Thinking™ Facilitator

Base Camp Trained EOS implementer

Business Performance Specialist

David has over 40 years of hands on business and business related work experience and is the Senior Associate of Next Level Business Planning.  The firm provides leadership teams with the tools, training and skills to build high performance, productive teams within their businesses organizations.  David has a passion for working with leadership teams to help them create a laser-focused vision and provide the tools, training and traction to achieve that vision.   He also helps to create a culture of engagement and accountability to maximize efficiency and profitability by training employees to think and act like owners.  David can be reached at david@nextlevelbusinessplanning.com.