Use this 6-point agenda for meeting success within your business

Most people resist meetings because they think they don’t work.

They don’t work because the meeting structure is wrong:

• you talk – they listen – doesn’t work
• they come to the meeting unprepared – doesn’t work
• you come to the meeting unprepared – doesn’t work

Here is a proven 6-point agenda for a brilliant 30-minute weekly team meeting, it comes from the Verne Harnish study of fast-growing businesses.

It will help you kick-start meetings in your business – what have you got to lose?

1) Good news of the week – 5 minutes

Why start with good news? Well, you want to start your meeting on a high – this can be personal, or business related, or both.                                               

2) Share your numbers- 5-10 minutes

This is where the team shares their numbers to reflect their work and responsibilities. If you feel someone is falling short or something is going wrong, that’s a separate discussion for another time. Don’t get into the detail, report the numbers and move on.

3) Bottlenecks or hold ups – 5-10 minutes

What issues are slowing people down or stopping them getting their work done.

Regular meetings will highlight the issues that crop up repeatedly and need addressing.

4) Strategic or big issue – 10-20 minutes

What is the priority business focus? – this needs to be one business issue, mentioned to ensure the team are focused on delivering it.

5) One word or one phrase finish 

Ask every individual to use one word to describe how they feel. Might be tricky in the first meeting, but they will start preparing for future meetings. Again, no discussion, if someone is unhappy – address that separately – remember ONE word.

6) BTW – Back to Work

This agenda is nothing complicated. But these meetings are rarely held, and agendas are rarely used.

You’d be right to call this simple common sense. It’s just not common practice.

Make it common practice in your business.