Tag: Decision Making

Meeting Length vs Effectiveness: Effective Meetings Require Time

Posted on by Howard Shore

Meeting Length vs Effectiveness

Meeting length vs Effectiveness has a huge impact on how you should engage within your organization. Do you find that your organization faces the same problems and challenges year after year, with no resolution? Do you discuss the same issues concerns, people, and customers month after month? Do you find that right when you are getting to the heart of the matter in the middle of an important debate or topic, your meeting is over and you have to postpone for a later date? Do you create goals and plans that do not come to fruition?

These are typical results when you do not spend enough time meeting with your leadership team.

Cons of Not Setting Aside Time for Effective Meetings

Have you considered the amount of time, productivity, and growth you have lost by not setting aside enough time to properly make decisions, to debate and resolve issues, to align priorities and to hold leaders accountable? By avoiding meetings, critical decisions do not get made or are made poorly.

Failure to debate priorities and work through issues can bring organizations to a standstill while leaders wait until the next meeting or for a final decision, allowing your competition the opportunity to thrust forward. While it is counterintuitive to most leaders, spending more time in meetings could actually double or triple company productivity.

Optimal Meeting Lengths

The key to an effective meeting is a commitment to setting aside enough time. Assuming you know how to run an effective meeting (and experience says you probably need help), the executive team should be allocating the following time blocks to work on the business, to debate issues focused on strategy, accountability, setting priorities, new opportunities, evaluating your people, challenging the business model, etc.:

Daily Meeting Length:

10-Minutes a Day for a Huddle with Your Direct Team

Weekly Meeting Length 

1 Hour per Week

Monthly Meeting Length 

1 Full Day

Quarterly Meeting Length 

2 Full Days (1 Day is Strategic)

Failure to have these meetings and to focus on the right topics robs you of significant growth and profits. Contact Activate Group Inc. for a FREE consultation or give us a call at 305-722-7213 to see how a business coach can help you run a more effective organization.

Learn more about effective meetings:

  • Effective Meetings Start On-Time
  • Effective Meetings Focus on Decisions
  • Effective Meetings Require a Purpose
  • Effective Meetings Have Conflict

Make a Decision

Posted on by Howard Shore

Decisions, decisions, decisions…who’s making them in your company? Do you have a good decision process and are the right people involved in the decision making? Are they being made in a timely manner? Are they good decisions? If you find yourself mired down in a bog of disappointment by the answers to these questions, the following reasons may be why:

  • There is a lack of good decision-making processes for key decisions.
  • Too much time is being spent on matters that are unimportant.
  • Not enough time is spent on matters that are critical.
  • Companies fail to make decisions regarding critical matters.
  • Senior management involves itself in the wrong issues.
  • Many decisions should be delegated to lower tiers, but senior management does not delegate responsibility.

Does any of this sound familiar? To start pulling yourself out of that bog of disappointment, there is a framework that we have come up with to guide you through the decision-making process:

For all decisions, 12 questions should be asked:

  1. What is the goal in the decision?
  2. What are the consequences/costs of making a bad decision?
  3. Why am I involved in this decision?
  4. What is my role in this decision?
  5. Do I (we) have the expertise to make a proper decision?
  6. What criteria should we use to make a good decision, and how will we rank and weight them?
  7. Are there proven tools to help us make this decision?
  8. Who else should be involved in this decision, and what rile should they play?
  9. How much information is appropriate for this decision?
  10. How much time should I spend on this decision?
  11. How long am I willing to wait to make this decision?
  12. How many alternatives should be considered?

By using this list, one can help avoid making major decisions without taking proper precautions. The list also helps balance risk, time, and cost.

Howard Shore is a business growth expert who works with companies that want to maximize their growth potential by improving strategy, enhancing their knowledge, and improving motivation. To learn more about him or his firm please contact Howard Shore at 305.722.7213 or shoreh@activategroupinc.com.

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