From the course: Best Practices for New People Leaders

Your time and others' time

From the course: Best Practices for New People Leaders

Start my 1-month free trial

Your time and others' time

“

- I once worked with an organization that was frustrated. From CEO to frontline employees, I heard the same complaint. It takes forever to get anything done, and everyone needs to weigh in on decisions. They were a healthcare organization that cared for people. And so they were very thoughtful and a kind team. But their policy of having everyone present for meetings and making sure everyone's voice was considered for all decisions made business slow and ineffective. They did this because they didn't want to exclude anyone or hurt their feelings, but it resulted in frustration. I want to share with you the importance of having effective meetings and clear decision making in order to empower your team to make confident and independent decisions. Every company and employee feels they're in too many meetings. But you can reduce this by structuring your meetings and communicating your expectations. Start by assessing your company culture. Do you make decisions by committee? Do you make decisions without letting anyone weigh in? Do your people feel empowered to make decisions without having any buy-in when it's not needed? Examine your meeting and ask your team for feedback. Do they think we have the right people in the meeting and the meetings are effective and necessary? You might find that your team feels there are too many meetings on the same topic or nothing gets done. Either end of the pendulum is ineffective. And I have seen this to be a very cultural practice. You need to be aware of how members of your team feel to see if change is needed. And if it is needed, you as a leader will have to put in the work to make those changes deliberately. If you do have to do that, explain clearly why are you making this change, so no one feels like the change was inspired due to their mistake or shortfall. An important piece of more effective meetings is to have an agenda and a desired outcome laid out ahead of time. Then in your meeting, assign deliverables to people. This gives the meeting purpose and a clear resolution at the end. Walk out of every meeting with a who's going to do what and by when. Don't leave it to chance. I've seen it happen too many times, people leave meetings and ask each other, so what are we doing? Don't fall into that trap. You can also look to see where can you delegate the decision making to your team, or consider if it might be appropriate to bring stakeholders or their representatives to the meetings or the decision making process. Ultimately, no one wants to feel like they're not trusted to make a decision or that they're wasting time in countless unnecessary meetings. So ask yourself seriously, are you having to make decisions by committee, or are people empowered to make level-appropriate decisions? If they aren't, ask them for their feedback today. Whatever it is, take feedback seriously and aim to make your meetings a better use of everyone's time, starting now.

Contents