The bane of most employees is the dreaded ‘staff meeting’—a recurring and, seemingly, indestructible corporate ritual. The team, department, functional, regional and/or company ‘rah rah’ meeting annually consumes an inordinate amount of employee time and energy. And, the cost to the enterprise can be measured in ‘real dollars’. Assume ten people, earning over $100K per year, have been sequestered for a four hour meeting. Even before the costs for the continental breakfast, the box / hot lunch and the afternoon snacks are added in, think about the $20K in ‘staff time’ already spent. Specifically, assuming each employee in the meeting is earning about $50per hour x 10 employees=$500 per hour x 4 hrs=$20K of sunk investment for the meeting. I calculate ‘staff time’ because, if not in the meeting, the staff would/should be working towards organizational goals and objectives. If the meeting is facilitative towards more efficiently and effectively meeting stated goals and objectives—then meeting time and expense is a good investment; if not, the meeting is ‘time off task’ and an example of squandering scarce resources. Not all meetings are time wasters, some are useful and necessary. In my mind, the four types of necessary staff meetings are:
1. Planning,
2. Calibration,
3. Informational and, the occasional,
4. Motivational (inspirational) meeting.
The Planning meeting should be strategic in nature and designed to articulate the goals and objectives the enterprise will seek to achieve over a defined period of time. The outcome of the meeting will be to align behavior/performance to support the course of action the organization plans to follow over the short term (year) or long term (3-5 years). Planning is based on historical data, trends and performance against prior period goals; taking into consideration environmental changes in demographics, competitive framework and the talent, skills and abilities of your current workforce. A good Planning meeting is based on a realistic assessment of the organization’s ability to achieve its stated goals. The outcome of the Planning meeting should be goals that are realistic and time bound. Setting goals that look good but are unrealistic creates, over time, a cynicism in the both the stockholders and shareholders mind. Goal setting is not about ‘optics’. Goal setting is about setting targets that can be reached—not targets that are designed to appease and/or over promise.
The next necessary meeting is the Calibration meeting. This is where we should be measuring progress against goals. The ideal frequency, in my estimation, for this type of meeting is quarterly. If we meet too soon, not enough data or information is available to make sound decisions; if we meet too late, little or nothing can be done to alter the course we are on—put another way, “you can’t un-ring a bell.” A timely calibration meeting will allow the organization to reallocate resources, to deploy or redeploy talent and/or to “cut our losses.”
The Informational meeting should be devoted to just that—giving out new and important information about organizational policies, procedure and practices that impact the way people do their jobs. Consequently, this type of meeting need not consume a lot of presentation time. Presentation decks and overheads should be streamlined, simple and direct. Please avoid the PowerPoint orgy of lights, sound and motion. Shoot straight. Tell’em what you’re going to talk about; talk about it; and, then tell’em what you just talked about—i.e., introduction, body and summary. Leave some time for questions and answers. Request that participants write down their questions on the 3x5 note cards handed out before the meeting started.
And finally, the Motivational meeting or what I refer to as the ‘rah rah’ meeting. These types of meetings are the staple of Sales organizations. Outrageous themes, loud, bone jarring, music along with elaborate production sets, guest speakers and plenty of “we are the greatest, nothing like us ever was” speeches characterize these gatherings. Based on how I describe these meetings, you might be surprised that I list them as necessary. Well, they are necessary—every 2 to 3 years. People need to feel a part of something—a movement or a dynasty ! Work needs to be about more than coming into the office, going through the daily routine and feeling like the Charles Schultz’s Peanut character who said, “Achieving something around here is like wearing dark pants and peeing on yourself—you get a warm feeling, but nobody notices.” Well, somebody will notice at a properly designed motivational meeting. Employees get to interact with each other, trade ‘war stories’ and pump each other up. The atmosphere can be both festive and focused!
In this blog, I have described, to the best of my recollection, the meetings I sat through during my corporate career. My next blog will discuss the types of participants I saw at these meetings.
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