I think about communication when things go wrong and often forget about sharing what is happening in business if I am on a good road. The problem is that communication within the organization should be constant and not treated as an inconvenience. I am more than guilty when it comes to staff meetings and I would rather duck out than face long boring talks. I tune out and think about my day rather than thinking about the company in general. By doing this, I was finding myself out of the loop so to speak and not really knowing the underpinnings of the problems the company was facing. I also was not aware of how and why we were winning business either. The only time I was interested is when I wanted to bring a problem to the table and get a resolution. Does any of this sound familiar?

Somehow we need to change the mindset of employees and make staff meetings useful and to the point. This will mean creating an agenda ahead of the meeting (by at least one or two days) plus time allowances for items on that agenda. The agenda needs to be enforced by the meeting leader so that long discussions are kept within a time limit. If further discussions are needed, a subsequent meeting can be set to get deeper into the subject. There is no need to involve everyone in some items.

A staff meeting should address wins as well as losses plus any changes to processes and results of action items from the previous meeting. This means if there was an off line discussion to resolve a problem, the resolution should be brought forward and if necessary, a vote to accept the solution.

The whole point is to direct discussions that keep the business going and keep the staff interested at the same time. I still dislike staff meetings, however, I do enjoy knowing what is going on without all the boring details.