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How to Eliminate Team Meeting Tedium, Ep 158

Jul 23, 2020

Due to social distancing measures, businesses the world over have unexpectedly found themselves forced to conduct virtual team meetings. What many quickly discovered is that virtual team meetings, like in-person meetings, can drag on and end up extremely unproductive - except even more so!

Instead of getting to business and lining out next steps, virtual team meetings often turn into time-sucking social hours, feel pointless, or take three times longer than necessary, all because there’s no meeting framework in place.

A recent study revealed that unproductive team meetings waste nearly $40 billion a year; and that regardless of company size, employees spent 15% of their time in meetings. That’s a lot of time and money down the drain!

In this week’s new episode, James and Dean share simple, streamlined strategies to eliminate team meeting tedium, so you can get to business, get a plan in place, and get on with your day.

Outline of This Episode

  • Why virtual team meetings take way longer than they need to [5:35]
  • What to have in place even before the meeting structure [10:40]
  • Know your definition of success [25:30]
  • What to do once everyone’s on the same page [37:27]
  • James’ three-step approach to team meetings [41:41]

3 major points discussed

  • Why do team meetings often feel pointless? Because most team meetings consist of these two elements: Catching up, and checking in, neither of which move your company forward. Without a clear, focused structure based around a clear, focused goal, team meetings can easily get and stay off track. It doesn’t mean you have to be a drill sergeant, but no consistent structure and clear goal, your meeting will end up unproductive and feel pointless.
  • Setting your team meeting agenda. Before you even head into your team meeting, everyone’s got to be on the same page. For example, what are the big projects your company is focused on right now? What needs to happen in order for your team to complete those projects on time, and in a way that leads to the results you want? Once everyone understands what the focus of the meeting’s going to be, and the role each team member plays in creating that project outcome, it’s easy to get crystal clarity on your team meeting’s goal and agenda.
  • On-point, productive meetings don’t happen without a framework. James uses a three-step approach to team meetings. Step one is about solidifying company culture. This isn’t a free-for-all social hour, but rather, an opportunity for you and your team to check in with why you’re all doing what you’re doing. After that’s done, steps two and three are about getting down to business: Where are we, and where do we go from here? All the details for exactly how to follow James’ three-step team meeting approach are in this week’s episode!

Music for “Just The Tips” is titled, “Happy Happy Game Show” by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

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