“Attending a meeting is like investing in the stock market – you exit with disappointments or dividends.” Unlike a stockbroker, a leader is in control of the outcome of a meeting.
In a Gallup article about productive meetings, participants said that 67% of meetings they attended were “failures” or “disappointments”.
WOW. That is a big chunk of time that has been wasted because a leader did not take the time to prepare for a dividend but winged it for a disappointment.
Due to the recent Union action, there has been a significant decrease in collaborative meetings across the education community. Hopefully by second term, educators will be able to meet to plan, teach and assess.
So why not start a fresh and really create effective meetings that produce wonderous work and people exit with dividends.
Firstly – What does disappointment look like?
Meeting runs over time.
One person holds the talking stick for a majority of the time.
People move off task.
Time eaten up due to brainstorming rather than decision making.
No action plan is implemented.
Secondly – What do dividends look like?
Meeting starts and ends on time.
Everyone gets to hold the talking stick.
Discussion is focused on the agenda item.
The conversation is either discussion or decision making.
A Team Leader is trusted to lead a meeting that provides dividends. And why is this important?
Because everyone’s time and energy are valuable. And a leader who recognises this and provides dividends, will have a team that will be more inclined to contribute and be accountable for their actions. Basically, the leader is building trust.
Here is a comment from a principal after her Team Leaders implemented some effective meeting strategies:
"Two of our Courageous Leaders had collab meetings yesterday and the feedback was extremely positive from a number of sources. One staff member said that the meeting only went for 30 minutes but it was great as they discussed everything on the agenda, and he felt people walked away with what they needed. All in all, a great result – thanks for your work in this area, the benefits are showing, and we’ve only just started."