News
Meetings
28-02-17
Regular weekly meetings, Waste of time and money or not?
Recently I came across to a training material advising "We had better watch out the quantity and regularity of the meetings, because they do cost money to us." Basically it says if there is nothing to say, just cancel them. But is it a good practice? Let’s have a look at this subject:
Communication is exchange of information and feelings among the parties. The aim of the weekly meetings is the same: exchange of information and emotions among the team members. No, we are not robots, workers do have emotions and feelings and believe or not this aspect of them is the one makes your projects succeed. In these one hour meetings, the manager shares the latest information related the likely future of the business, team and members inside the organisation, and receives feedback from his team members, or observes their immediate reactions. It is also an opportunity for the team members to tell anything in their mind related to the job, team and the future decisions. It also supplies an environment to share the new ideas. Additionally, with high possibility, it is the unique opportunity for the team member to get together, and have a kind of social interaction. This will improve the motivation and make the work environment more fun and pleasant to work.
However if it is a quite silence meeting, that means no one uses the opportunity to communicate, In that case, of course the meeting cannot reach its purpose. But you should not blame the meeting itself and cancel it. This will just serve to communication problems that are likely to be raised in the near future. Instead of that, a good leader makes his team prepare for a better interaction and uses this one time chance of get together. A good leader would not cancel regular weekly meetings, because it is not waste of people’s time and company’s money. On the contrary, it prevents misunderstanding, eliminates the risks caused by miscommunication.
A good leader knows the importance of the weekly team meetings. He does his best to create the free flow environment to improve exchange of useful information and to create friendship/ team spirit among the team. He involves team members solving problems using brainstorming or alike techniques and makes them a part of the solution. The team will leave the meetings with lifted up spirit and re-energised to tackle with the upcoming problems that they can face in the next seven days of challenge. Members will understand each other better and this will help to create a better culture inside the office. So, it is a YES to regular weekly team meetings, try not to miss or underestimate its importance and power.
Derya Milner
MA Leading Innovation and Change
