Improving Weekly Team Meetings

I led a team meeting every Monday. The format was numbers, review of agency work, individual updates and AOB. The meetings were repetitive and I wasn't sure they were actually adding value to peoples' work. I decided to ask all the team members individually what they got out of the meeting and which parts of it were useful or interesting.

Initially, all of them said that this meeting was very useful. I then focused on individual content and format and what preparation they put into it. The response was that only the numbers bit was really useful (this took up about 5 minutes of the hour) – the rest was repetitive and didn't really hold any value (i.e. the individual updates they made up during the meeting). However, it was clear that meeting as a team was valuable – on both a professional (to discuss issues within the team) and personal level.

The decision I made was to re-format the meeting to include 10 minutes on numbers and then the rest of the time to discuss one pressing issue we had as a department or that one individual was struggling with. Responses have been very positive – people now book a slot and take responsibility owning each meeting.

The team has also taken responsibility for driving the agenda; when they own the time they put in the time and effort to ensure that it is utilized effectively. It also brings to life some of the challenges facing the different roles, broadens the understanding cross functionally and helps us address key issues as a team. The effect on me is that I no longer drive what could be a frustrating agenda; interest and commitment have increased significantly.

Questions to Consider:

Do you know what your team members really think about the value of team meetings?

Why did all the team members tell this manager that the meetings were valuable at first when they only felt that 5 minutes of the meeting was actually valuable?

What did he do to get past their initial response to what they were really thinking?