Four Meetings That Are Critical to Your Business Success
Introduction
We’ve all been in meetings that were a waste of our time. However, in the dynamic world of architecture, time is precious, and the value of every meeting cannot be overstated. As professionals in the realm of MEP Engineering, we understand the importance of being strategic in deciding which meetings are important to progress. The right meetings in your business will help you keep the rhythm necessary to have repeatable success. Here are four meetings I deem critical with the suggested duration and who should attend:
Strategy Meeting
Have a quarterly strategy meeting with your executive team. The purpose is to get clear on where you’ve been and where you’re headed. This sets the direction for everyone else and is vital for creating alignment in your practice. During this meeting, review your company’s vision and the past quarter’s (or year’s) results. Perform a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis to get a high-level view. Identify strategic issues and create a game plan to address those issues.
The meeting for Q1 will also serve as your annual strategy meeting. Determining specifically what you’re going to do in the coming year defines the main goal of this meeting. You’ll set your annual goals, also breaking them down to Q1 goals that will help you reach your annual goals.
You’ll meet the other three quarters and follow a similar process as outlined in the first paragraph. Since you’ve already determined the annual goals and priorities, each quarter you’ll only focus on the current quarter. Just like for Q1, you’ll set new goals for that quarter that will continue to help reach the annual ones.
Duration: 1 – 2 days (2 days for Annual meeting, 1 day for the Quarterly)
Frequency: Every quarter (one of the quarters is the Annual meeting)
Who: Executive Team
Staff Meeting
Meeting with your entire staff is an important way to communicate your company vision. During the meeting it is fine to cover minor logistics, but the bigger goal is to help everyone see where you’re headed. Review the company performance over the last time period. Celebrate the accomplishments and acknowledge the lessons learned. Recognize employees for promotions, years of service, or other accomplishments. Share the company goals for the coming time period.
Duration: 1 hour
Frequency: Every 1 – 3 months
Who: Entire staff
Team Meeting
Meeting with your functional team regularly, keeps projects and tasks moving forward. It’s an opportunity to identify issues early on and coordinate with each other. Review any upcoming deadlines and roadblocks. You can also do mini-trainings on topics that you feel are relevant and helpful. If your team is the entire company, I still recommend holding both a team meeting and a staff meeting. The team meeting is intended to coordinate the day-to-day work, as compared with discussing the overall vision in staff meetings.
Duration: 30 – 60 min
Frequency: Every week
Who: Entire team
1:1’s
These one-on-ones (1:1’s) are between each supervisor and each of their direct reports. Half of the meeting is to be spent talking about what is going on in the person’s life. Be sensitive that you aren’t making them uncomfortable, but most are fine with talking about hobbies, trips, kid activities, and so forth. Be genuinely interested in the person and what they enjoy. The second half of the meeting is letting them self-report on their top priorities. This isn’t a “beating”, but rather a time to find out what obstacles they may be facing. Discovering how you can help to eliminate those obstacles becomes an important goal of this time together. The benefit lies in each supervisor actively connecting with their team members, aiding them in achieving success.
Duration: 30 – 45 min.
Frequency: Every 1 – 2 weeks
Who: Each supervisor with each direct report
Conclusion
Magic happens when we do the right activities at the right rhythm. You will have to adjust the different aspects of the meetings, such as duration and frequency, to meet the needs of your firm. Make sure that these meetings are scheduled in advance so that you maintain the rhythm. By sticking to this rhythm, you will have the best chance available to create business success. Scheduling these meetings at the rhythm that keeps your architectural organization moving forward to success emerges as the main key to high meeting effectiveness.
