In the organization, one of the effective forums for engagement or one of the time-waster can be REVIEW MEETINGS !. The conclusion depends on the way the business head or the leaders conduct the meetings.
Conducting a purposeful and Result driven review meeting is an art, and the business head and other leaders can learn with conscious effort.
Let us discuss some of the insights about the review meetings and the solutions approach to make it effective.
Mindset related to review meetings:
some people look at the meeting as wasting of time and believe that the meeting is not going to help. Eventually, they never conduct any meeting, and even if it requires some decision to be taken, they use to call the individuals over the phone or 1-1 conversation and again convey the discussion to someone else. In this process, actually, the business head or leader's personal productivity is getting affected.
I observe that the mindset behind this, the business head is not interested or has not learned the art of conducting review meetings. The reason can be fear of facing people in a forum, not able to hold the review meeting effectively. This root cause needs to be understood and challenged.
Hence, the mindset and belief about the meeting need to be changed. Meeting need to be seen as a forum of related people to discuss, take decision collectively, and in the process, communication issues, the time delay can be avoided. Once the mind shift happens, the leader is in a position to learn the art of conducting reviews.
Fixed Meeting Reviews as much as possible :
In a smart organization, one good pattern, we can see is the fixed meeting reviews on a daily / weekly basis. For example, the sales review meeting will be every Monday at 2pm, Production review meeting every day at 9.30 am, and so on.
When you have a habit of fixing the meeting reviews on a daily / weekly basis at a fixed time, it improves the planning process of all the stakeholders, and the accountability to the meeting outcome will improve eventually as the agenda, and people's responsibilities are almost fixed.
When you call for ad-hoc meetings, the people may not be prepared for the agenda, data may not be available; eventually, the effectiveness of the meeting will also be less. It does not mean that we should not have an Adhoc meeting, as it depends on the business situation. It needs to be understood from the right perspective.
Be clear on the meeting purpose - Business or Technical Review?
I have seen in many organizations, the business head diverts the review purpose by going in microanalysis or shifting the focus to technical aspects. For example, in one of the monthly P&L review meetings, the purpose of the review should be reviewing the previous month's sales performance, expenses, and profitability and to discuss the future action plan. The discussion calls for high-level decision making on specific business-related issues. Rather than focusing on the business issues, the business head and the engineer get into the details of rejections, tool design, and engineering dimensions, and the whole meeting purpose is defeated. The other people's time also was wasted. If the technical aspect is important and to be discussed, nothing wrong in that, that can be done offline along with the respective people in a detailed manner. The business head decision is essential in the business review meeting, and he must be conscious of his/her focus on business and technical aspects.
As a business head, you need to be conscious about working on macro and micro details and need to be aware of switching in and switching out.
The other disciplines of conducting review meetings:
Conducting a purposeful and Result driven review meeting is an art, and the business head and other leaders can learn with conscious effort.
Let us discuss some of the insights about the review meetings and the solutions approach to make it effective.
Mindset related to review meetings:
some people look at the meeting as wasting of time and believe that the meeting is not going to help. Eventually, they never conduct any meeting, and even if it requires some decision to be taken, they use to call the individuals over the phone or 1-1 conversation and again convey the discussion to someone else. In this process, actually, the business head or leader's personal productivity is getting affected.
I observe that the mindset behind this, the business head is not interested or has not learned the art of conducting review meetings. The reason can be fear of facing people in a forum, not able to hold the review meeting effectively. This root cause needs to be understood and challenged.
Hence, the mindset and belief about the meeting need to be changed. Meeting need to be seen as a forum of related people to discuss, take decision collectively, and in the process, communication issues, the time delay can be avoided. Once the mind shift happens, the leader is in a position to learn the art of conducting reviews.
Fixed Meeting Reviews as much as possible :
In a smart organization, one good pattern, we can see is the fixed meeting reviews on a daily / weekly basis. For example, the sales review meeting will be every Monday at 2pm, Production review meeting every day at 9.30 am, and so on.
When you have a habit of fixing the meeting reviews on a daily / weekly basis at a fixed time, it improves the planning process of all the stakeholders, and the accountability to the meeting outcome will improve eventually as the agenda, and people's responsibilities are almost fixed.
When you call for ad-hoc meetings, the people may not be prepared for the agenda, data may not be available; eventually, the effectiveness of the meeting will also be less. It does not mean that we should not have an Adhoc meeting, as it depends on the business situation. It needs to be understood from the right perspective.
Be clear on the meeting purpose - Business or Technical Review?
I have seen in many organizations, the business head diverts the review purpose by going in microanalysis or shifting the focus to technical aspects. For example, in one of the monthly P&L review meetings, the purpose of the review should be reviewing the previous month's sales performance, expenses, and profitability and to discuss the future action plan. The discussion calls for high-level decision making on specific business-related issues. Rather than focusing on the business issues, the business head and the engineer get into the details of rejections, tool design, and engineering dimensions, and the whole meeting purpose is defeated. The other people's time also was wasted. If the technical aspect is important and to be discussed, nothing wrong in that, that can be done offline along with the respective people in a detailed manner. The business head decision is essential in the business review meeting, and he must be conscious of his/her focus on business and technical aspects.
As a business head, you need to be conscious about working on macro and micro details and need to be aware of switching in and switching out.
The other disciplines of conducting review meetings:
- start on time and finish it on time
- Go by the data or fact, less on opinion and emotional aspects
- Respect each one to voice their concerns, ideas, and suggestions
- Focus more on the decision /actions
- Be patience when others are talking
- Learn the art of questioning and giving feedback with the intention of curiosity and improvements than finding fault and blaming.
The facilitation skill of the chair is important in making the meeting more effective or just time wasters. The good news is that facilitation skill can be learned through awareness and practice!
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