Executive Coaching - Activate Group Inc

Meeting Length vs Effectiveness: Effective Meetings Require Time

Posted on November 11, 2020 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

3 Things Great Leaders Never Do

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Howard Shore

Great leaders have a lot in common. I have been reading Great by Choice (Jim Collins), which discusses the personality traits common among the most successful CEOs in the country. Things like goal setting, creativity and healthy paranoia are highlighted. As a business coach and leadership trainer, I have worked with many successful CEOs. Based on my experience, I’d like to add to the conversation with three things that the great leaders would never, ever do:

Pass the buck. The buck stops with the leader. That’s what they are getting paid for, and if something goes wrong within the team they innately understand that it is their responsibility and no one else’s. Great leaders never blame others. I think this is especially important for young managers and mid-level team leaders to remember. Great leaders at all levels don’t play the blame game.
Say, “I’m too busy.” A leader’s primary responsibility is to set their employees up for success. Period. If employees need help, have questions or want to share their ideas, great leaders always have time and an open door.
Spend, spend, spend. Great leaders understand that spending company money is a highly visible responsibility, and that they set the example for everyone else. I’ve seen leaders and company owners spend money like drunken sailors and guess what? So do their employees. And at the end of the year when accounting shows them the damage, they have no one to blame but themselves.

Howard Shore is an executive coach and leadership trainer with expertise in leadership coaching and human capital management. To learn more about AGI’s executive coaching, management consulting, and leadership training, please contact Howard Shore at (305) 722-7216 or email him.

6 Tips for Setting Better Client Expectations

Posted on September 12, 2011 by Howard Shore

Think for a moment about your last unhappy customer. Maybe it was a client who didn’t see the results they wanted or a customer who had a bad experience. Continue reading “6 Tips for Setting Better Client Expectations”