Not another meeting!
If you’ve heard or thought, “Not another meeting!” you know what a challenge having or attending meetings can be. Yet, having well thought out and appropriate meetings will enhance your construction company’s ability to perform. Meetings address two basic components of establishing a highly functioning business – information and relationship.
Keep in mind; some meetings can be replaced by an email or a shared document. When possible, do that! For the meetings you must have, keep these guidelines in mind.
Consider who needs the meeting before creating the attendee list
Start and end on time
Have an agenda
Recap agreements before the meeting ends
Be sure attendees have hardcopy or digital notes as follow up
Also, when preparing the agenda, remember the meeting’s purpose as well as what the appropriate outcome should be. Some examples:
Reach a decision
Develop a plan
Give instructions or teach a new skill
Introduce a new approach
Reward growth or success
5 typical construction company meetings
While different industries have a variety of meeting types, the following five business meeting types serve the construction industry well. In no particular order and with no comment concerning frequency these are the meeting types we’ve seen be useful for experienced and discerning commercial construction contractors.
Team Alignment
Decision making
Problem-solving
Team building
Safety
We discuss each one in the following sections.
Team Alignment
This meeting is sometimes known as a Status Update meeting. One of the main purposes of this type of meeting is to make sure everyone on the team is on the same page.
It is in this meeting where you’ll be able to address any problems that have bobbed up, make decisions, prioritize next steps, then assign appropriate tasks.
This meeting saves valuable work time by avoiding rework scenarios. And, it aids in reducing frustration among team members.
Typically, your team members will be silently (or vocally) asking this question, “How does this affect what I need to get done?”
Encourage them to add these two questions to their thought process at each team alignment meeting.
“What do I need from others to move my work forward?”
“What can I offer that can help other team members in this instance?”
Decision making
The purpose of this meeting is to:
Gather information
Suggest solutions
Evaluate options
Decide how best to move forward
It’s easy to understand that the use of collective intelligence leads to a more informed decision. And, while the purpose of this meeting is to find a solution or decide on a path forward, there is a by-product that’s invaluable.
The by-product has to do with team morale and, put simply, team buy-in. When individuals participate in group planning, they are much more likely to embrace the decisions and do their part to work toward the goals.
Decisions being what they are, and people being who they are, makes it imperative that this meeting ends with a recap of what decisions were made. Be certain to provide written notes (to all participants) of decisions and what responsibilities were assigned to whom.
Problem-solving
Often, problem-solving meetings take place when an emergency needs a quick resolution. With that understanding in mind, it is best to follow simple guidelines for achieving the best outcome.
Get the right people in the room
Know the priorities
Set the agenda
Defer to the person or persons with the greatest expertise for the matter at hand
Give high priority to the input of people who will be implementing the decision
When the problem to be solved is not an emergency, the above steps are still useful.
The outcome of a non-emergency problem may be:
Resolved
Delegated (either in-house or outsourced)
Deferred to a future agenda
When meeting notes are sent to attendees, they should include:
Decisions made
Assigned tasks
Any follow-up matters
Future agenda items
Team building
No matter which form it takes one of the best ways to begin team building is to celebrate team successes. And, always be on the lookout for ways to praise individual growth points and accomplishments.
This article from the Wrike blog offers 12 Awesome Team Building Games Your Team Won’t Hate. You can pick and choose what would work well for your team. The activities listed run from just a few minutes to two hours. They look like fun, and you should check them out.
Further, if you want to work on team building you may want to plan events that don’t’ have “team-building” written all over them. They are subtle yet effective ways to get your team to learn more about one another and to engage better.
Here’s a list of five to get you started.
Attend volunteer events as a group
Eat together – better yet, add cooking to the event (Chili Cook-off or Short Cooking Class comes to mind)
Have a try at an Escape Room
Gather at an Axe Throwing room (I think this would be great, Tonya isn’t so sure.)
Go Geocaching together
Now, watch and listen for feedback to see what types of events your team prefers.
Safety
We talked about better management in your construction business through daily safety meetings in this post. Check it out, it has relevant information.
And, here’s a brief safety meeting reminder.
Keep it:
Standing
Brief
Entertaining
Insightful
Meeting the challenge
Meeting the meeting challenge is easier when you determine which types of meetings are most beneficial for your construction company. Follow the basic rules, communicate well, and have some fun along the way.
It is our desire this article (among our growing library of construction-centric informational articles) helps assist commercial construction contractors build better building businesses.
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