Human nature means that most people come to work to do a good job.  That means that your team members want to be recognised for the effort and commitment they are putting in.

I recently spoke to a team member who was going to a team meeting offsite, and he was not looking forward to it!  When I asked him why he told me that these meetings are always good but they have some serious failings:

1. they are badly planned - team meetings appear to be called at random, with little notice, and there is never an agenda in advance
2. they are always focused on the future - team meetings are spent looking forward and never refer back to consider what lessons can be learned from what has happened since the last team meeting
3. there’s no accountability in the team - my friend resented the work he was putting into his presentation on projected sales because he felt that, after the team meeting, he would never again be asked whether he had achieved it.

Team meetings are one of the most effective tools for team building and development, if used in the right way.  Of course, the converse applies and, used in the wrong way they can be the least effective too!

Structure your team meetings well and you will see the difference in your team’s motivation and commitment through their attendance and contribution to the team meeting.  High performing teams employ some common practices for their team meetings:

• Plan team meetings well in advance
• Structure an agenda and send it out beforehand
• Make presentations action focused – blue sky is all very well but what is the team going to deliver?
• Use team meetings as a form of continuous self-assessment for the team – go back to the actions from the previous team meeting and check whether everything that was agreed has been achieved
• Make the team accountable for its collective performance
• Publicly applaud the successes since last meeting
• Where there have been disappointments, discuss them together and learn from them
• Work together to generate ideas to ensure success next time
• Treat successes and failures as belonging to the whole team, not to any one member
• Ensure that every team meeting ends with a run-through of a documented set of actions, with owners, and make a review of previous actions a standing agenda point for future meetings.

Give it a try and let me know how you get on!