One of the functions that has always frustrated me has been management staff meetings. Who should attend? How frequently should they be held? What’s the agenda? How to control “bickering”? How to make them more productive?
I have always felt that the primary objective of these meetings is to facilitate communication amongst the various members of the executive staff. My style has always involved open communication, so I usually am knowledgeable about the status and issues of the people that work for me. However, I am continuously amazed at how little informed the staff members are of each other’s status and issues.
For some sound, timeless advice, I again return to George Von Gehr’s new book, “The Effective Entrepreneur: Fifty-nine rules to Create Value Throughout the Life Cycle of Your Company” (Amazon Link) and, with permission, reprint here Rule 15. Here’s George’s background in a previous post.
“Staff meetings often suffer from lack of productivity because they:
- Are too frequent
- Last too long
- Are contentious instead of problem solving
- Lack consistent structure
Since immediate problems are addressed as they occur, staff meetings should be less frequent than most managers expect. Once can experiment with the frequency, but weekly may be too often. Less frequent scheduling encourages attendance.
Fixed agendas help provide structure and may minimize argument. Most arguments result from company politics and/or narrow functional, business unit or divisional views. To maximize productivity and efficiency, it is the CEO’s responsibility to remove politics from these meeting and to foster cross-functional or cross-divisional cooperation.
Most emerging companies typically have more opportunities than people to support them, so setting priorities for the use of resources – human and other – is a frequent task at these meetings. In addition, it is imperative to establish who “owns” or is responsible for each major initiative resulting from the priority setting. Ownership facilitates tracking and results in the owner feeling responsibility.
These meetings should also be time-constrained so that attendees can plan their days. Such planning also encourages a crisp trip through the agenda. If special topics need longer treatment, then notice should be given.
An important periodic topic for this meeting is progress on both the annual operating budget and the longer-range strategic plan. It is critical to recognize inflection points for each of these plans. If it appears the operating plan cannot be met, then the causes for the shortfalls are essential discussion points and may require a longer, supplemental meeting. The strategic plan may not be a normal agenda topic at all meetings, but when market disruption of a technological or competitive nature occurs, this event should be explored.
Beware of unrealistic operating targets accompanied by overbearing pressure to reach them, especially when these targets and pressures have major effects on compensation. These sorts of plans were the seeds for an entire garden of fraudulent account and high bonus payments at Fannie May, Enron, Sunbeam, Tyco International and many other companies.” [KR Note – add Lehman Bros. and AIG]
My experience indicates that weekly staff meetings are the right frequency, and they should be conducted with a strict time limit of about 2 hours or less. Work and meeting time can easily expand to fill whatever time is allotted. The other thing I have found effective is to have each participant submit an email to the group with his or her weekly status, issues, etc. That way, most minor, operational items can get taken care of via email without wasting time at the meeting, and the participants have some time to consider questions and discussion topics prior to the start of the meeting. Lastly, I have found that it is effective to have a major topic to be covered at each meeting and this should be laid out in advance – product status, annual budget, a new system implementation or whatever.
Posted by expertceo 
