If you are all in agreement with what’s been written, then you need to create the year’s schedule. Planning ahead is key here.
The worst-case scenario is that you start having these meetings and catch ups, and then, because you get busy or certain people are not in that day, they simply peter out to nothing. This will send a terrible message to the team as a whole, and trust and confidence will start to break down. This is by far the worst possible outcome and needs to be avoided at all costs.
So, map it out…
7) Give each meeting a name, for example – Leadership Team Meeting, Work In Progress Meeting, Morning Huddle etc. You decide, be as creative as you wish – these are your meetings after all.
8) Now start to map out a high-level agenda for each meeting. Every meeting needs direction and an agenda will help by outlining the areas that need to be discussed.
9) Finally, get these meetings in the diary. Schedule them and make sure you share the importance of these not being missed or being bumped to another day or time. Schedule them and stick to them. If certain members of the team cannot make it – it doesn’t matter, they happen anyway.
Now it’s time to have some fun! At first, they may last a little longer than you’d hoped, but that will ease as you get more used to them and the agenda becomes more free flowing. Warning (yes another!) don’t get bogged down in the details. Detail can be discussed ‘offline’. These meetings should be high-energy, fast paced, informative, engaging and productive.
If people start to lose the will to live half way through, you may have gone a little off track.
Enjoy it and stick with it. It really is good to talk, and in over 20 years I have seen the best firms achieve their goals, accelerate their progress and transform their business by getting together and spending some good quality time collaborating.
For further insight into the value of great communication please check out my podcast here
About Michelle Hoskin
Michelle Hoskin (aka Little Miss WOWW!TM) is well known for her endless enthusiasm and energy, infectious personality and unique outlook on what she describes as a “magical profession”.
With over 20 years’ experience working alongside some of the world’s most successful financial services organisations, Michelle is an internationally recognised author, speaker, coach and leading expert in the design and implementation of international framework-based best practice standards.
Michelle is pioneering a drive towards increased professionalism and operational excellence through her continued work at Standards International – the UK’s premier certification body for British and international financial services standards – of which she is the founder. She also most recently led a sector committee whose objective was to develop and launch an exciting new international standard for professional paraplanners.
Relentless in her pursuit of a global movement of change within financial services, Michelle is fully committed to supporting financial professionals worldwide to achieve things they only dreamed were possible, and to working with them so that they become the best possible version of themselves.
