Meetings Matter with Jeff Loehr & Joe Rojas
The idea of long, drawn-out, pointless meetings leaves a bitter taste, making employees less willing to participate and robbing meetings of their true purpose. Patrick Lencioni states, “Meetings are the linchpin of everything. If someone says you have an hour to investigate a company, I wouldn’t look at the balance sheet. I’d watch their executive team in a meeting for an hour. If they are clear and focused and have the board on the edge of their seats, I’d say this is a good company worth investing in.”
Coaches Jeff Loehr and Joe Rojas presented the effective meeting structure that their team follows at RedSapiens in our webinar, Meetings Matter – How to Make Them Better. Beginning with meeting rules, it is important to follow these guidelines to get the most out of your meetings.
Rule #1: Stay on topic
Rule #2: Assign tasks and follow up
Rule #3: Encourage open dialogue
Rule #4: Start on time and end on time
Rule #5: Structure your meeting
The 5th rule is arguably the most important. If your meeting does not retain structure, all other rules can quickly fall through as well. RedSapiens practices the following meeting structure for their weekly leadership meeting:
- Welcome and overview – Use this opportunity to highlight recent wins and state the purpose of the meeting
- North Star KPI’s – Discuss 3-5 metrics that are of the utmost importance, i.e. your Critical Numbers
- Team updates – Team members should present strategic pillar updates and discuss staff/client development. Are your quarterly priorities on track? If not, what is next?
- To-do list – Use team updates to establish a checklist of what needs to be done before the next meeting. Also review to-do’s from the previous meeting
- Leadership Roundtable – Use this opportunity to discuss issues that require team agreement
- Hurdling – Understand and resolve any obstacles
- Wrap up – Close the meeting with a 5-scale star rating where everyone can provide their input
According to Joe and Jeff, this structure will reduce the number of ineffective meetings and save valuable time. Meetings matter because it gives your team a chance to share challenges, develop solutions, take advantage of different abilities, and ultimately align your team.
Better yet, Align’s newest meeting tool Huddles 2.0 has everything you need to get started with productive meetings.
You can sign up for a free business model training with Start Grow Manage by clicking here.
We’ve also created a short video showing you how to incorporate Jeff & Joe’s meeting structure into Align.
