523: Why are team meetings important?

My Business On Purpose

Why do we push so hard for weekly team meetings? Let’s talk about that today!

Hello there friends, Thomas Joyner with Business on Purpose here.

So, if you’ve listened to this podcast much at all, you know one of the cornerstones of our system is the Weekly Team Meeting. But why? Don’t most team meetings just turn into a task list that’s communicated verbally to a team? Just a box that’s checked off so we can be face to face for an hour a week?

The painful response to those questions is YES! Unfortunately, most meetings really serve little purpose and could better be communicated in an email. But that’s the Team Meeting of old. In fact, if you do them well, they become a source of accountability for the team. A place to connect. A jump-start of energy. And the lifeblood of training for your team.

Last week I had a client come in and they were frustrated. “I feel like we have the same problems week after week!” Alright, tell me about those, I asked.

The next 10 minutes were spent listening to a myriad of frustrations and disappointments from the past month.

My first question…”Well, tell me about your last few team meetings?” I could tell that question was uncomfortable. We implemented Weekly Team Meetings about 10 months ago and they started off with a bang.

“Well, we’re so busy, we’ve kind of put those aside here and there. We’ve probably done 1 in the last 6 weeks.”

“Ok,” I said, “now we know the root of some of the problem... let’s talk through why that is keeping your team from underperforming.”

You see... when we view weekly team meetings as just a box to check off, we miss the entire purpose. It’s so much more than that. So let’s talk through the components of an effective team meeting and jump off from there.

1. Something that builds community

For us, it’s BIG Wins. We start every meeting with them. For others, I’ve heard talk about their High and Low for the week. But is there something you can put at the beginning of the meeting so that your team feels like a group of human beings, not just a group of employees? That’s building culture and encouraging buy-in.

2. Accountability from last week's action items.

Are there areas you asked your team to improve? I know that I, for one, rarely implement things that I know will not get asked about again. But, if I know I’m going to be asked about it at next week's meeting, I will 100% find the time to accomplish it. It works the same way for your team. Don’t just assign tasks without following up and making sure they got done. Without critiquing the little things. That’s how you make sure your team is following your processes. You review it EVERY. SINGLE. WEEK.

I’ll never forget meeting with a client months ago and they told me how powerful that time of follow-up was. My response? Awesome! Now do it again, and again the next week, and again and again and again. The power is in the repetition!

3. The action items for the week ahead.

Not every single little thing, but some areas for emphasis that, you guessed it, you will follow up on next week! Does your team need to work on customer service? Do they need to clean out their utility vehicles? Do they need to improve the estimating process and follow the system? I don’t know, but put it out in front of them and let them know you will discuss the following week.

4. Last, but not least, a quick time for training.

Don’t overcomplicate it. Pick a system or process and retrain on it. That way your entire team is trained on every process a minimum of once a year! That’s powerful. I have a client that keeps a notepad in his truck. Every time one of his guys calls him with a question, he writes it down and trains the whole team on the question at the next team meeting. His thought process is that if one guy doesn’t know that answer, he can’t be the only one! And week after week he is getting less phone calls from his guys as they are trained better and better each week.

THAT'S POWERFUL! That’s a team meeting with a purpose.

Now back to my client. We rebuilt their team meeting process and recommitted to it. Because if they can feel like a team weekly, be held accountable for their actions, trained on the way we want to do business, and then be sent back out to do the work? That’s a recipe for success!

So have you given up on weekly team meetings? Have you just kind of rolled your eyes and done them half-heartedly?

This is your moment to grab a hold of them and make them matter! Make them truly give you some momentum heading into your week. Your team will thank you. Your business will thank you. And the chaos will slowly start to melt away.

It’s time to start a Weekly Team Meeting if you’re not doing one already. THIS WEEK!

Hope that is what you decide to do this week!

Hey Real fast, one thing most people do NOT know about with Business on Purpose, is if you are a solopreneur or a young business, we have an online Membership that is much more affordable than 1 on 1 coaching. All of our content, PLUS monthly accountability calls, to help you build this in your own business. If you would like to know more, reach out because you need this TODAY!

Have a great week.