Auto Care Insider Volume 101 - 13

TIPS TO MAKE SURE YOUR STAFF MEETING IS WORTH THE TIME that is more important than them! This is fine if it seldom happens but, if it is common, it is sending a very bad message to your staff. DO use the staff meeting for recognition. An easy technique is to start every staff meeting with a simple question-who is doing a great job for us? This allows your direct reports to hear about the important work that is happening across the organization. DO NOT have long staff meetings. A staff meeting that is an hour or an hour and a half needs to be crisp and things need to move along. This keeps people engaged and that is what you want. DO use the time to provide an overview of what is happening across the organization. Comments from the leader are an area that people embrace- they want to know what is going on and they want to know what you think-so make this a key component of the meeting. DO spend time solving problems. Why not spend time in the staff meeting working on real issues- after all, you already have everyone there and people feel productive solving problems. DO send a recap of your staff meeting to your organization. I started sending out a recap of my staff meetings and this became very popular. I found this was a great communication vehicle where I could make sure the entire organization understood where we needed to be focused in order to achieve our goals. DO NOT have outside speakers. Okay, sometimes you want them-for example, you definitely would want one of your key business partners to come and explain their strategy-but often outside speakers are simply used to fill time. Try this test: If you had a policy of not having outside speakers at your staff meeting, would you schedule a separate meeting on the subject the speaker wants to present? Do not cancel your staff meeting if you can possibly avoid it. DO NOT cancel your staff meeting if you can possibly avoid it. What do cancellations say to your direct reports? They say something has come up DO NOT allow people to use smartphones or similar devices in the meeting. Have a policy that-if something comes up that is important- the person should leave the room to deal with it. By Bob Ronan, excerpted from: http://www.cio.com/ article/2459655/timemanagement-productivity/8tips-to-make-sure-your-staffmeeting-is-worth-the-time.html 10 SIMPLE WAYS TO HAVE MORE PRODUCTIVE MEETINGS 1. State the Objective A simple statement of what you hope to achieve can shave an average of 17 minutes off of your meeting. 2. Be Exclusive When I get a meeting invite, I'll usually ask (politely) if I actually need to be there. Amazon has a "two pizza" rule (i.e., never have a meeting where you can't feed the whole group with two pies). It all serves one purpose: only invite essential personnel, and you'll find things stay on track. AUTO CARE INSIDER | VOL. 101 13 http://www.cio.com/article/2459655/tim-management-productivity/8-tips-to-make-sure-your-staff-meeting-is-worth-the-time.html http://www.cio.com/article/2459655/tim-management-productivity/8-tips-to-make-sure-your-staff-meeting-is-worth-the-time.html http://www.cio.com/article/2459655/tim-management-productivity/8-tips-to-make-sure-your-staff-meeting-is-worth-the-time.html http://www.cio.com/article/2459655/tim-management-productivity/8-tips-to-make-sure-your-staff-meeting-is-worth-the-time.html http://www.cio.com/article/2459655/tim-management-productivity/8-tips-to-make-sure-your-staff-meeting-is-worth-the-time.html

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Auto Care Insider Volume 101