1.    Assign roles in advance of the meeting

- Facilitator

- Action Register Keeper

- Pass Up/Pass Down Distributor

- Participants

2.  Establish ground rules for the meeting

- Arrive on time

- Be prepared for the meeting

- No cell phones in the meeting

- One speaker at a time

3.  Set a standard agenda

- Action Register Review

- Scorecard Review

- Recognition

- Around-the-Table

- Pass Up / Pass Down Distribution

- Action Register (review actions captured during the meeting)

- Meeting Audit

FREE WEBINAR

“Practical Strategies for More Productive Meetings”

by Seth Davies, Managing Partner

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Session Option 1 – 10 am EST

Session Option 2 – 1 pm EST

For details go to http://processbasedleadership.com/webinar-registration/

Registration is free, but space is limited.  Reserve your spot today!

Most organizations are experts at advertising. Email, newsletters, bulletin boards, intranet are methods organizations use to be in contact with their employees. Problem is they are not communicating with the employees, they are advertising. True meaningful communication is face to face, two way.

Three Ways to Improve Communication in Your Organization:

1.    Weekly, face to face meetings with your staff. Talk about the business

and share key business information.

2.     Develop a process to pass down information from the top and pass up

issues and questions from lower levels.

3.     Use an action register to document assignments and tasks generated

during the meeting.  Assign target dates and review it each meeting.

FREE WEBINAR

“Practical Strategies for More Productive Meetings”

by Seth Davies, Managing Partner

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Session Option 1 – 10 am EST

Session Option 2 – 1 pm EST

For details go to http://processbasedleadership.com/webinar-registration/

Registration is free, but space is limited.  Reserve your spot today!

Recently, the Harvard Business Review published two helpful (Management Tips) suggestions regarding the effectiveness and efficiencies one can gain with minor changes to staff meetings.  Have you tried any of these suggestions?  What else would you add to the list?

First, HBR suggest that you can cut your meeting times in half by trying these three measures:

1. Stand up. Most people won’t linger on an issue if their feet hurt. Remove chairs from the room. When standing, people are often more attentive and engaged.

2. Use a timer. Designate an allotted time for each agenda item and set a stopwatch or the timer on your phone. When time is up, assign next steps and move on.

3. Show the cost of the meeting. At the top of the agenda, show the calculated hourly cost of having the group together. When people realize how much a meeting costs the company, they are more apt to be efficient.

These suggestions were then followed by suggestions for setting the proper tone for staff meeting success.  HBR recommends these three pre-meeting activities:

1. Clarify the objective. Make sure people know why they’re invited. If it’s to make a decision, give participants the time and materials they need to prepare.

2. Prep important people. Talk with key participants about agenda items ahead of time. You may hear insights that could change how you run the meeting.

3. Expect full participation. Ask attendees to do their homework, come with relevant materials, and show up ready to contribute.

Have you tried any of these suggestions?  What else would you add to the list?

Join us February 29th for a live webinar on “Productive Meetings”

For many leaders today, meetings have become a necessary evil they would rather avoid altogether.  With changing business environments it is important to be flexible and adaptable to maintain performance while being asked to do more with less.  One way to get ahead of the curve is to cut your time spent in meetings and get back several hours of your work week.  This webinar discusses practical strategies to help you find lost time and maintain productivity.

What You’ll Learn in this Webinar:
- Increase the effectiveness of your team meetings
- How you can hold fewer and shorter meetings each week
- Processes for rotating meeting participation roles
- Methods for keeping everyone focused and on task

“Process Based Leadership Workshop and Tour of Learjet”

Learn how to build and leverage non-negotiable standard processes to fully realize the potential of yourself and your team.  See Learjet’s highly-skilled technicians assemble sheet metal and tubing into World Class aircraft.  Hear from Learjet’s senior leaders as they discuss their cultural transformation and how they were able to use Process Based Leadership to reinvent and sustain a revolutionary way of operating.

Dates: May 9th & 10th

Location: Wichita, KS

Details: Outcomes and Agenda at processbasedleadership.com

Competitive Solutions, Inc. (CSI) has over twenty years in leadership training and consulting experience. CSI specializes in helping organizations develop meaningful business metrics, create culture of true accountability and improve communication within the organization deploying a business methodology called Process Based Leadership®.

1. Set standard agenda items for each weekly meeting – Pass Up / Pass Down

• • Before each weekly meeting, designate a team member to capture critical business information which will be shared with employees
  • Leaders should identify 3-4 key pieces of information they want to share with employees

2. Schedule the top level team’s meetings on Monday mornings and lower level team’s meetings on Monday afternoons.  This will allow time for a Pass Down of critical business information. Pass Up of information occurs from the lower level team to the top level team after their meetings.

• • Hear, react and ask questions

3. Audit the process - Verify the pass up / pass down for the week has been shared. Randomly ask employees what one of the pass down items was for the week.

I know, it sounds crazy, but I’m serious.  If you’ve grown tired of attending too many unproductive meetings, then make a stand.  Blow off the next meeting and see what (if anything) happens.  Most likely, you’ll find that the world doesn’t end.  In fact, you’ll probably be able to get more work done during this reclaimed time than any other hour this whole week!  What you may not realize is just how much influence you have over improving the productivity levels of meetings until you actually being playing hooky.

How Can Blowing Off a Meeting Lead to Best Practices?

I’m sure you’ve been in a meeting and noticed that at least one person hasn’t shown up.  Typically, you later hear about some impending doom that would have befallen the entire company had said person pulled themselves away from the firefighting to attend the meeting.  Really?  Doom?

by Connor Jordan

Join us February 29th for a live webinar on “Productive Meetings”

So, what happens in your organization when someone misses a meeting?  Does the entire team of 11 people stop and wait for the missing person?  Does anyone send a convoy to track down (and drag in) the missing person? The most common answer is… of course not, the meeting goes on as scheduled.  So, what does this tell you about how people view the value, importance and productivity of the meetings that they miss?  By first identifying such issues, then creating professional processes to address these issues you can form a series of best practices to ensure more meaningful, productive meetings for the long term.

Why People Blow Off Meetings

When you notice a pattern of absenteeism in a meeting you regularly attend, stop and ask yourself why this happens.  In many cases, people have come to conclusion that the time and effort put forth in attending the meeting far outweighs the meeting outcomes.  In other words, they value their time as an absentee more than they value their time as a participant. So, let’s break down how people come to the decision on being a no show.

The Unknown – With the lack of a stated agenda this leaves attendees guessing at what the meeting is all about.  They can’t get prepared.  They don’t know the expected outcomes. It is hard for them to assign a real value.

Lack of Focus –Without a specific focus you are left with a dreadful “status” meeting.  These kinds of meetings only serve to keep the boss up-to-date or just “check in” with everybody.  There is no real value in gathering a dozen people in a room so that they all can say that something is “in progress.”

Time Consuming – How often does the “quick huddle” turn into a 90 minute discussion?  Some people bail out on meetings for fear of getting trapped in a room far beyond the expected end time.  As a meeting drags on their minds will begin to wander while emails, voice mails and sticky notes pile up on their desk.

Déjà vu – Have you ever sat in a meeting and thought to yourself “didn’t we say the same thing last week in this same meeting?”  You’re not the only one in the room thinking that.  Getting trapped in a weekly rerun isn’t very productive.  Meetings that rehash what has already been decided are a big drag on personal and team productivity.

Best Practices for Productive Meetings

To ensure high attendance and top notch productivity, insist on the following minimum standards for all meetings that you attend or facilitate.  If these standards aren’t met then don’t have the meeting.

Meeting Outcome Statement – What is the point of the meeting?  If the person holding the meeting can’t provide you with a one or two sentence description of what the meeting will accomplish, then how can the meeting end with productive results?  (and no, “status update” or “progress report” are not acceptable missions for any meeting)

Published Agenda – Prior to the meeting, each attendee should have the opportunity to know what will be discussed.  This will aid attendees in preparing their minds and allow them the chance to collect and bring important, relevant information to the meeting and keep everyone focused.  It will also help maintain high standards for efficiency.

Time Limit – At the very least, each meeting should have hard start and stop times.  An open-ended time frame will potentially lead to straying from the meeting mission and waste a lot of valuable work time.

Meeting Activity Log – (or Action Register) – Be sure to have a “to do” list which assigns responsibility, due dates, and any additional notes regarding the completion of each activity as related to accomplishing the meeting mission.  During the meeting someone has to be assigned to keep track of any action or decision to be completed after/outside the meeting.  This keeps the meeting flowing and allows for decision making and activity deployment to occur in the appropriate time, place and manner.

Connor Jordan on Twitter as @cjordan17

The Challenge

Upon recognizing the need to make performance improvements, Brazeway’s senior leaders determined the need to leverage their employees’ strengths via business-focused work teams and a robust communication process.  They set sites on “being the best” and creating a culture of empowerment and personal accountability.  Additionally, they determined to set their strategic goals based all the criteria laid out by Industry Week for Top 5 Manufacturers.

The Solution

Working closely with senior leaders, CSI helped Brazeway develop a comprehensive plan to implement a business alignment system called Process Based Leadership® (PBL).  The plan included a transition to a team-directed workforce, the implementation of accountability processes, the creation of a business scorecard, and the development of a meeting-driven communication process.

Some of the tactical components of Brazeway’s PBL implementation include: weekly communication meetings focused on performance, business scorecards for every team in the organization providing connectivity to the bottom line, team problem solving and decision making processes to guide performance improvement efforts, all paired with auditable processes to drive business results.

Brazeway aligned all these processes in such a way that all employees have become business performance experts resulting in business-focused decisions made at the appropriate levels by the appropriate people.

“Our employees are our greatest asset.  Empowering them with bottom-line business accountability has been, and will continue to be, the key to our growth and success,” proclaims President Stephanie Hickman.

The Results

During a six year period following implementation of Process Based Leadership®, Brazeway’s sales tripled and their profits grew by 260%.  Brazeway shares its financial success with all of its employees through a bonus plan based on the company’s profitability and individual or departmental objectives that are tied to the company’s annual return on net assets.  All employees feel like they are true owners in the company.

“We should be very proud of what we’ve accomplished, yet never satisfied that we have reached our potential,” adds Ms. Hickman.

Industry Recognition

Brazeway, Inc. was named one of Industry Week’s Top 5 Manufacturers.  They sit in good company with other award winners, such as Toyota, Merck and Nestle.

Do you dread meetings at work? Most people do.  Many times, employees go to a meeting expecting it to be bad.

Employees don’t mind going to a meeting if it is outcome driven and advances the business.

Three Tips for Outcome Driven Meetings:

1. Action Register – Use an action register to capture assignments and tasks resulting from discussions in the meeting.  This will eliminate discussing a topic multiple times. Close each meeting by reviewing the action register and receive verbal affirmation from attendees on assignment and target dates.

2.  Standard Agenda – Develop a standard agenda for weekly meetings.  Items may include, Action Register Review, Scorecard Review, Recognition, Round-the-Table and Meeting Audit. Participants will come prepared to have a meaningful meeting that will advance the business.

3.  Meeting Audit – Typically, people talk about how bad a meeting was outside the conference room.  At the conclusion of the meeting ask this questions -“Did this meeting advance the business?” Participants must provide justification behind “thumbs down” regarding the meeting.  This will drive a continuous improvement mindset.

FREE WEBINAR

“Practical Strategies for More Productive Meetings”

by Seth Davies, Managing Partner

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Session Option 1 – 10 am EST

Session Option 2 – 1 pm EST

For details go to http://processbasedleadership.com/webinar-registration/

Registration is free, but space is limited.  Reserve your spot today!

by Seth Davies
Run Time: Approx. 32 minutes
 

With the start of a New Year many leaders plan to make changes to affect performance results over the next 12 months. However, it can be challenging to know what to keep, what to change, and where to begin making those changes.

What You’ll Learn in this Webinar:
- Understanding the fundamental reasons scorecards are used
- Defining and overcoming the challenges leaders face when making changes to their scorecards
- Tools and scorecard processes leaders can implement to improve bottom line performance

If you’d like some additional info, please let us know and we’ll be glad to help.

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With the ringing in of a new year many leaders see it as a chance to get motivated and start out with a clean slate.  Many seize the opportunity to boost results by crafting a new scorecard for the upcoming 12 months.

If you are revamping your team’s scorecard, here are a few common mistakes to avoid.

Common Business Scorecard Mistakes

1 – Tracking Too Many Things – simply because you can measure something does not necessarily mean that you should.  Metrics need to be within your span of control, fall within mission-oriented focus areas, and have meaning and impact on activities.  The most effective scorecards typically have between 15 and 18 total metrics.

2 – Random, Infrequent Review – to get the most out of your scorecard you need a systemic approach to its use and review.  You should have established communication guidelines and a standard frequency for review to allow all teams at all levels to maintain a common “battle rhythm of communication.”

3 – Failing to Audit and Adjust – great organizations review their scorecard processes every 90 days.  This audit process gives each team an opportunity to maintain scorecard relevance, share best practices, and eliminate the need to “rip and replace” your system each year.

By avoiding a few common mistakes and by implementing an audit processes leaders can be sure to have a relevant and meaningful scorecard all year round.

FREE WEBINAR
“Creating Your 2012 Scorecards”
by Seth Davies, Managing Partner
January 25^th
Session Option 1 – 10 am EST
Session Option 2 – 1 pm EST
For details go to http://processbasedleadership.com/webinar-registration/
Registration is free, but space is limited.  Reserve your spot today!