3 simple ideas to improve your team meetings

3 ideas to help improve your team meetings.

But first, did you know that your DNA is only 4% different to Chimpanzee DNA? Scientists studying the human genome have recently concluded that 96% of our genome is similar to that of the Chimp.

Now, I’m not suggesting that you have a team of Chimpanzees (though that could explain why you want to click on ideas to help get more from your team). If your team meetings resemble a Chimpanzee’s Tea Party, your Business Coach suggests it’s time to change.

Scientists don’t know what some of these DNA sequences do, some have described them as “junk DNA.” Apparently “junk” DNA performs an important role and some of the sequence patterns have been named “pyknons.” These “pyknons” may be important in protein production.

Productive team meetings

Good team meetings can:

• discuss important strategic issues, like where the company is going and how it’s doing (you do that don’t you?)
• save time on operational issues – telling a group once about how not to do something is easier than telling 5 individuals separately.
• strengthen the team, adding long term value to the company

A structured agenda adds value to the meeting (click for ideas about agendas and  6 team meeting ideas for better team meetings)

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Irrelevant discussion and DNA

Maybe that “irrelevant fluff” that seems to happen in meetings is like the junk DNA! Like the “pyknons” some of that irrelevant chatter, “fluff and junk” that gets discussed is also important (if only to your team – AND THEREFORE YOU). Just make sure that this poorly understood team bonding chatter is a small part of the meeting, not the purpose.

Many years of Team management and Business Coaching have led me to often arrange sections of meetings where I’m not there, so they can talk about things openly between themselves.

3 ideas to improve your meetings

Regular team meetings are very important, but:

1. They must start and finish on time – that’s your job. Starting late because you’re busy shows total disrespect for the team (so does cancelling at the last minute) – however good an excuse you give.
2. You should probably have more meetings than you believe, but much shorter and focused ones, mixed with longer and more open ones. A 5 minute huddle every day can be very powerful, with a 10 minute meeting weekly. If you want to know more about that, click on new year new teamwork, which expands on this  idea.
3. Always discuss your key performance indicators, as you should all be interested in them, but show them in an interesting way (click here to read more about KPIs, if you think they’re boring irrelevant sets of numbers that nobody likes).

Chimp versus Human DNA

• The amount of chimp DNA is 12% larger than it is in humans
• In many areas of the DNA sequence, major “rearrangements” seem apparent. These account for perhaps 4–10% dissimilarity between chimps and humans.
• Chimps have 23 chromosomes and humans have only 22 (excluding sex chromosomes for both species).

So, the physical and mental differences between humans and chimps are most likely due to the differences in purpose and function of the “junk DNA”. Perhaps your team need to talk more fluff than you!

If you liked the monkey analogy, here is another that relates to your team: “Are your staff like wet monkeys”?

What’s your experience, how do your team meetings go?  Share your good tips about meeting management…

Written by Jon Baker The 5-50 Coach. I help professionals grow their firms from 5 to 50 employees, sustainably, profitably and still have fun. Have you got your "next step kitbag yet"? It's stuffed with guides, reports & templates helping you grow from 5 to 50 employees. Click here for your copy.