Empower Your Team Through Strategic Meetings

How do you effectively coordinate with your team on objectives, guidelines, and other practical matters?

As an entrepreneur, it’s tough to stay on top of everything while also keeping your team in the loop. To properly implement all these rules and guidelines, you need your team to function well. Sharing important topics during breaks or at the start of the day often feels like you’re repeating yourself constantly. And with mostly part-timers, it seems like nothing sticks. Strategic meetings offer you the solution.

Here’s why they are essential and how to organize them to maximize your team’s potential.

Run a meeting

Focus on one topic during a work meeting, instead of bouncing between items. This ensures everyone gets the message without you having to repeat yourself later. Employees can ask questions and discuss, making the topic clearer and everyone feel more involved.

Make a schedule

Once every two weeks or once a month, schedule a meeting for half an hour to an hour at most. Holding concentration for longer is difficult for many people and gives too much room for distraction. Make sure the planning of these meetings is already fixed for the whole year. That way, everyone knows in time when they are expected to be present. For part-timers, plan another working day if necessary.

Provide a meeting room

No need for a fancy meeting room – the coffee room works just fine, as long as you avoid interruptions from the phone or unexpected visitors. It’s all about focusing on the team and the meeting. And naturally, offering a cup of coffee, tea, and some sweets will be a nice touch!

Create an agenda

Have a fixed meeting agenda so everyone knows what to expect. Encourage the team to suggest topics and share these ahead of time for preparation. If there are too many items, push the less urgent ones to the next meeting.

Save individual issues or performance discussions for one-on-one chats.

A sample agenda could be:

• Opening
• Adoption of minutes
• Points raised
• Discuss reports and complaints
• Draw up an action list
• Questions/Questions
• Final

Choose the discussion leader

To keep the meeting focused and productive, it’s crucial to have a discussion leader. They manage the time, involve employees in the discussion and redirect if the conversation drifts off course. At the end of each topic, they summarize and clarify decisions for everyone.

Appoint a note-taker

Have someone take the minutes of the meeting. Then distribute these minutes to all employees (including those who did not attend due to illness, for example). This way, everyone has an overview and an action list and can read back at any time what was discussed. This also makes it easier to hold people accountable for agreements made in that meeting. If necessary, switch meeting leaders and note-takers for each meeting. That way, you do not create a hierarchy.

Try it a few times

You’ll be amazed at the team’s commitment when you regularly discuss work openly in a quiet setting. This approach boosts motivation and cultivates a positive working atmosphere. When you’re short on topics, consider discussing practical processes (are they still effective?) or reviewing and fine-tuning the RI&E action plan. Additionally, addressing working conditions, absenteeism, and cooperation are always relevant and significantly enhance these discussions.