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Hi, 

I have used O3s at my previous job, and now that I am at a new job I just sent the email for scheduling O3s with my new directs.

However, I have never had staff meetings before. I am now the COO of a group of companies with different lines of business (retail, wholesale, energy, real state, e-comerce) and my directs are the managers of different areas such as HR, Purchasing, Projects, administration, IT, CustomerService, etc.

I am a little confused as to how to handle a Staff meeting that is relevant to all of my directs. Since they are all managers and very busy people I don´t want to create a 90 minute meeting in which only 15 minutes of the meeting will cover a topic that concerns one of them for example. That´s why I am asking about guidance about the Staff meeting and how to handle it in my case or if it applies.

Thank you all for your valuable comments!

alex_e's picture

Hi David,

Did you find a solution to this ?

In a slightly different context, I have a very similar question: how to run an effective staff meeting with cross functional team composed of core skill Directors and representatives of support functions (RH, Finance, Quality and Purchasing).

Thanks,

Alex

davidbarriosr's picture

Hey Alex, we started having the weekly staff meeting 2 months ago. It has been positive in the sense that the communication between departments has improved and now everybody knows what the other departments are working on and also what are their needs. We are still getting used to this meeting and finding little things to improve here and there but all in all it has worked out good for us. The only thing is that there are a lot of managers in the meeting (about 14 of them), so in order to not go over the 90 minutes we decided to give some of them 5 minutes instead of 10 to talk about their results, radar, and need of support. It has worked ok so far. 

Rgds, 

DB

pucciot's picture
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BLUF :Every meeting must have a clearly stated objective and purpose.

Keep it Brief

Keep it clear

 See a Sample Agenda below ...   

 

 

Why are you brining these folks together ?

 

I started holding Weekly staff meetings that include folks from different departments and my skips.

I have been getting some concern saying that they don't want so many meetings.

And yet -- I have also received feedback from others thanking me for bringing the group together so they are keep in the know about activities.

 

I have explained the purpose of the meeting is -- Team COMMUNICATION

 

----------

AGENDA

1 : < 10 mins Get one common report from the Director  

Basically, So I can have only one Weekly Staff meeting for Administrative Announcements

---- "The Manager's WaterFall"

 

2 : < 40 mins Keep the team updated about that activities of the rest of the team.  

* Headline Updates Round Robin around the room ---

A: Something Specific that you did last Week (Wins, Losses, Problems Tackled, Problems solved, Big Meetings Attended, etc ...)

B: Something that you will be doing in the upcoming week. (Big Meeting Next Week, Project Working on, Reports due ...etc.)

---  Headlines only --- not an exhaustive list (Save that for the O3)  For this meeting you are giving your Headlines to Team.

 

3 : < 30 min Tackle one common Weekly Topical Agenda issue

-- That may not be mandatory for everyone -- Basically, for the last agenda item for some folks it might not be required for everyone to stay in the meeting.

If the topic does not involved them -- then let them leave. 

---

** Yes, I opened the meeting up for comments 2 weeks ago and heard the complaint of too many meetings and this one specifically. Especially that they don’t need to know what the folks in the other departments are doing.

 

I explained the purpose of the meeting again ....  and told them ... a Paraphrase of the speech I gave

============

Yes, thank you for your concern about meetings and your loss of productive worktime.

I do consider this meeting to be productive work time -- and here is why.

I invite you all to be Curious and Concerned about the work that the rest of the team is doing.

It is the basis of forming positive relationships with each other. And it is important.

Being Curious and Concerned with the work of your coworkers keeps us on the same page so we can help each other better, and point our customers in the right direction.

I don't expect you to be able to know and understand every detail of a coworker's job.  We are talking about Headlines here.  The wins the losses, the problems and the opportunities.

I have already seen times _in this very meeting_ where somebody reported something that they were doing and a person from another department offered to help and/or provide insight.

I invite you all to be Curious and Concerned about the work that your coworkers are doing and

I consider it as _Part of your Job_ to be Curious and Concerned about the work that each of the team is doing.

 Yes -- I consider it as _Part of your Job_ to be Curious and Concerned about the work that each of the team is doing

And this Weekly meeting is the best common starting point to do that.

============

 

I hope this is helpful

Good Luck

TJPuccio

davidbarriosr's picture

Thanks for your comments. You are absolutely right about the purpose of the meeting. Once everyone understands that IMPROVING TEAM COMMUNICATION is the sole purpose of this meeting then more positive results you can get from it. 

alex_e's picture

Thank you so much for sharing in such details your experience. 

I will explain in more detail the purpose of the meeting and the way it is designed to provide value to the organisation.

Thanks again,

Alex