How to Create a Dynamic Weekly Meeting that Facilitates Better Communication

Today, we’re going to talk about creating a dynamic weekly meeting. Two of the biggest mistakes that companies make when it comes to meetings are one, they don’t think meetings are important at all, so they never have them. And two, they have way too many meetings or really disorganized meetings where there’s no real agenda. Thus, precious time gets wasted.

So it’s important to have meetings, but it’s also very crucial to have dynamic meetings that are organized. We’ll look specifically at a possible agenda that you could implement each week to facilitate better communication. But before we continue, first you must make sure to start the meeting on time. Boom. Start on time. Finish on time. Value people’s time and schedules. Make it happen on the dot. And with that tidbit out of the way, let’s get started.

1. Personal catch-up. Real quick, have each member in your leadership team share what’s happened personally in the last week. Ask them about the biggest win they had, or something they’re especially thankful for. It’s really important to have a little bit of a personal side in these meetings to begin with, because you should want to know what’s going on in other leaders’ lives. That’s part of the joy of being in the business community. Besides, it’s good to talk about the biggest wins or what everyone’s thankful for so you can set the groundwork for a positive, uplifting meeting.

2. Review certain numbers. These are metrics that you’re measuring or tracking. Some call them KPI – key performance indicators, and others call it a scorecard. I have a process in my business where we set up KPI’s and score cards quarterly. So as you go around, each person will have certain metrics that they are responsible for, and they share this specific number with everyone.

For example, if you’re in marketing, perhaps your number is the total qualified leads generated this week. Announce it and then compare it to the goal.

3. Look at your quarterly goals or priorities. Ideally, every quarter you’ll have a lengthier meeting where you set up long-term goals and priorities. Then, in your weekly meeting, you want to discuss what progress has been made on those quarterly goals.

4. Action items from last week. What are the little activities or bite-size things that needed to happen between last session and now? Here’s where you keep each other accountable.

5. Anything new with clients or the team? What’s each person’s biggest win in business? At the start of the meeting you went around filling each other in on your personal lives. Now, it’s time to get down to business. Share success stories, big sales, or anything else that you’re thankful for.

6. Each team member’s top challenge of the week. Now, each of the first 5 items, depending on the size of your group, should take no more than 3-5 minutes each. This step is what takes up majority of the meeting. Here, everyone shares the top challenge they’re facing currently. Afterwards, you vote on the top 3 most difficult challenges out of all the ones shared, and then you discuss each one in detail.

In general, these are tougher problems that take a lot of people to solve. For example, one problem might be that someone recently left the company, and it’s hard to get everything done without them. So as a group, you can come up with a plan to quickly and strategically recruit a new person to fill that position. You might also split up the necessary tasks among the team until the position is filled.

Basically, for each challenge, the entire leadership team works together to identify the best way to get through it.

7. Action items for the next week. Each individual should come up with and share one major activity that they’re going to focus on in the next week. Then as a group, you review and tweak everyone’s activity, maybe even break it down into small action steps. Ideally, everyone will walk away with a clear goal in mind.

8. Recap. Everyone recaps what the best thing about the meeting was, as well as one suggestion for how to make the meeting better. Analyze the overall success of the meeting.

That’s it! Go ahead and implement this meeting process immediately. Make it a better than incredible day.