Last Updated on Saturday, 29 August 2009 01:38 Written by Dave Richardson Wednesday, 02 July 2008 07:00
Tired of hum-drum, waste-of-time meetings? David W. Richardson tells you how to give them meaning.
Your monthly store meeting is scheduled for Tuesday morning. Sometimes you wonder why because there's not that much to talk about. Then you think, Aw, heck, we'll just skip it this month. Don't.
Here are several reasons why meetings don't work and what you can do to make them more effective in your store.
1. Nothing ever changes. The meeting is over, people go back to work, and very little ever changes. You must have a plan if you're going to make a difference. First, establish your objectives. What do you want to have happen when the meeting is over? What actions will all of you take? Next, develop your ending, several strong statements that lead into your objective. Then develop two or three key points you want to talk about. It's not necessary that a meeting cover every single situation in your store. People can't focus on and remember that much.
2. You don't like to do store meetings. I don't like to attend many of the store meetings I see either. The owner or manager stands there pontificating on numerous thoughts and ideas. It should be recognized that this is a store meeting, not a store lecture. A meeting involves dialog between the leader and staff members.
Break people into groups of two or three, give them a topic to discuss, and then have them report back to the group. Conduct a productive discussion with your staff and agree on some creative strategies that will meet your objectives.
As they report their ideas, write them down on a flip chart. Don't have one? Get one. You can't run an interactive meeting effectively without a flip chart.
3. No accountability. There are no accountabilities because there are no commitments. People must make commitments to themselves, to their teammates, and to the store. For example, I will show a string of pearls to at least one customer every day. That's a commitment. If you can't show at least one string of pearls every day, then don't say you will. Make sure they're making commitments they can keep.
The beauty of it all is these aren't your ideas or mandated commitments. They discussed it, they reported on it, and, as a result, they made their own commitments. Now you're conducting meetings that can produce measurable outcomes.
4. Too much preparation required. To many, the time it takes to prepare a meeting is a major inhibiting factor. But, who says you have to be the one to conduct the meeting? If your meetings are a dialog and discussion, then anyone should be able to conduct them. Besides that, it will be a very good learning experience for the participants. Simply assign a topic to someone for example, how to make add-on sales more productive. If everyone knows that they will be asked to present a meeting at some point, you can bet they'll pay much closer attention at each monthly gathering.
written by BRIAN WILLIAMS, July 26, 2010
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written by Sami Jack, July 26, 2010
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written by Brenda , August 03, 2010
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