Meetings are important. They allow you to learn information and spread it around. And it’s difficult to get a good picture of a situation without the input of everyone involved. Small, daily meetings are a vital part of doing business, but what about the large company-wide or all-franchise meetings? Do they still make sense in our current economic situation?
According to John Baldoni of the Harvard Business Press, “Scaling back makes sense; canceling meetings does not.” And he’s got several good points to back that up. This is a great opportunity to show your company what kind of leader you are, demonstrate how you feel about your employees, and to assuage any fears of collapse.
A meeting also directs your employees as to what they should be doing short-term to help the company. They need to see that you are in control, you have a plan, and everything is going to be all right.
Baldoni has a few suggestions to help you convey these things in your next meeting. His first is that you should be focused. Demonstrate your knowledge of your company’s place in respect to the economy and what you are planning to do about it.
The second suggestion will work with this, or any type of meeting you do: tell stories. Far more exciting than statistics, and much more memorable that dry business jargon, stories capture the imagination and can deliver a point like nothing else. By using the trials and successes of other companies, you will not only enthrall your audience, but motivate them to action as well.
It will be good for you to know that you don’t have to be the only one talking. Baldoni suggests that you “hear from the field” too. Break your audience into small groups to discuss problems and come up with solutions. Present the best ideas to the audience. Let your employees tell their favorite success stories to energize and maybe inspire their coworkers to seek similar heights.
While it’s important to have large meetings -- even in this economy -- and there’s a few ways to make them even better, it still doesn’t change the fact that it may be difficult or even impossible to free up enough funds to have one. Well, a large meeting doesn’t have to take place in a hotel conference room. It doesn’t even need to have its audience in the same room.
So you have to tighten your belt and really can’t do the big meeting? Why not host a conference call instead? Immediately your travel and venue costs go out the window. But since it’s also important for your face to be seen, make it a video conference. For a large meeting, it might be more practical to put just your face on camera for everyone to see.
Meetings are important, especially when the chips are down. Make sure then, that you use your meetings right now to their full potential.
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