How to hold effective staff meetings

Many people believe that they conduct effective meetings, when all they really do is host a party filled with official sounding chit chat. Or worse, they deliver a monologue that bores everyone. In either case, their meetings produce little. Here's how to hold a short, effective staff meeting. 1) In general. Keep them short. Most staff meetings should last less than an hour. You want your staff to spend their time working on things that earn money for your business, not sitting in meetings. Keep them positive. Negative meetings contain insults, ridicule, and attacks. These activities create caution and resentment, which always costs your company money. Keep them interactive. Your staff consists of intelligent people. Put them to work in your meetings to advance the effectiveness of your organization. 2) Share news. Give the members of your group one minute to report on progress made in their area of responsibility. You'll find that this results in bullet point reports of essential information. It also prevents people from philosophizing, explaining, justifying, criticizing, and engaging in other unproductive activities. Plan a time budget: 8 to 10 minutes. 3) Teach something. Invite a guest expert to give a 10 minute presentation on some skill or technology that benefits your group. Tell the expert that you want a logical explanation of practical ideas. You can also ask members of your group to take turns delivering brief tutorials on topics that benefit the others. Plan a time budget: 10 to 15 minutes. 4) Practice skills. Create team learning activities that sharpen or teach skills needed in your business. For example, you could role play job skills (especially useful for sales teams), solve puzzles (useful for high tech groups), or take quizzes (useful for everyone). Ask group members to take turns bringing an activity that reviews or teaches a valuable skill. Follow this activity with a brief recap of key ideas. Then ask the group members to give a fifteen second report on how these ideas can be applied to improve their work. Plan a time budget: 10 to 20 minutes. 5) Solve problems. Give each group member a minute to describe a challenge that hinders work on a current project and then let everyone propose solutions. Suggestions should be brief and free of self aggrandizing explanations or motivational sermons. This process also requires a positive, supportive environment to succeed. If this is used to ridicule, insult, or criticize the individual, then people will be reluctant to reveal issues that need attention. Plan a time budget: 3 to 6 minutes per person. 6) Use a facilitator. A facilitator will help you conduct meetings where the results matter. That way, you can participate, rather than spend your time managing the meeting. A good facilitator will know group decision making processes that move your meeting toward results everyone supports.

To coach or not to coach

To coach, or not to coach: that is the question. Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of occasional "time lost," Or to take arms against a sea of troubles... Think you don’t have time to coach? Think again. It’s easy, almost comforting, to say there simply isn’t enough time in the day to coach and do everything else—reports, admin tasks, hiring, and, of course, selling. From a sales manager’s perspective, coaching is a burden, especially given the pressures to produce. But, consider the premise that proper coaching is, in fact, not “time lost,” but time saved. That an hour helping prepare a salesperson is time better spent than fighting the “sea of troubles” generated from unprepared, ineffective sales activity. The answer lies in targeted coaching. Think about it. Few, if any, fields of human endeavor succeed on mere reaction. Success requires preparation, focus and disciplined execution—especially when time is limited. There is no question that sales managers have one of the hardest jobs in any organization. But it is also true that sales managers are the key to success in both changing behavior and achieving positive results in the field. Huthwaite challenges you to find an hour a week to do a pre-call plan or some other coaching exercise with one of your salespeople. Monitor individual progress and measure whether there is a positive net gain. The benefits realized will be far greater than the business outcomes alone. You will also save hours that otherwise would have been expended objection handling, exception making or playing the super closer. The more proactive you are, the more discretionary time you have to invest in other priorities. How does the old saying go—an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure? Or a stitch in time saves nine? Trite perhaps, but true. To coach, or not to coach: that is the question. The answer is up to you.

How to inform employees when you sell a business

What is the best way to inform employees when you sell your business? Wait until the transaction is a done deal. After many years of representing people who want to sell their businesses, experience has taught me that complete confidentiality about any thoughts of selling are in the best interests of every business owner. Consequently, the best time to make any announcements about selling will be on the afternoon of the day your transaction closes. That announcement should be well rehearsed and should include a personal introduction of the New Owners. The meeting should be planned in advance so that 100% of all employees are in attendance. In that meeting, you can explain your personal reasons for selling and that, after a diligent search, you have found the ideal New Owners. You also can explain that you will continue to be involved in the operation of the business for a period of time in working with the New Owners. Then, the New Owners should explain their background, the reasons for being interested in the business and their desire to do whatever is necessary in order to grow the business and create more opportunities for everyone involved. Last but not least, the New Owners should indicate they plan “no changes” and want to meet individually with each employee to get their ideas and suggestions about how to best grow the business. Typically, any person buying your business will want to keep virtually all of your employees, as they represent a significant portion of the value of your business. Jobs will be lost only in those extremely rare instances when a New Owner intends to relocate a business a great distance, and then normally after a period of both notice and transition. The fact of the matter is that virtually all employees fare better in the future because a high percentage of New Owners come in with additional capital and a desire to grow their new business. This growth typically spells opportunity for employees who want to grow their careers and who welcome working with a New Owner.