How to Run Team Meetings That Inspire Your Employees
Things have changed about the way people work in the last few years. Lots of people have refused to go back to working in the office, and time-wasting team meetings are a big reason why.
Those team meetings did nothing but inspire them to walk out. In this episode, I discuss different types of meetings and reveal key pieces you need for them to inspire your team in the right ways.
3:44 - The curious case of Darius Cooks
6:43 - Why team meetings some people might’ve quietly quit their jobs
9:27 - The type of meetings you can have with your team
11:49 - Never have a meeting without this (it inspires your team to want to show up)
15:48 - How to get your employees involved in (and actually looking forward to) team meetings
Find me on Instagram or LinkedIn or email me at hello@lesliedlyons.com.
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Transcript for How to Run Team Meetings That Inspire Your Employees
Hey boss, I am Leslie Lyons, your embodied leadership and sales coach, and this is Pleasurable Profits. This podcast is ideal for owners and leaders of tattoo shops, permanent makeup studios, cannabis businesses, movement studios, sex toy shops, and other industries that are too often left out of the leadership conversation. If you’re looking for a woo meets strategy approach to defining your strengths and values, designing a business that supports you, and creating a soul-driven, and of course, pleasurable plan for profitability, then let’s get started.
Hey, party people, I'm recording this before today's episode, just to give you guys a heads-up that there might be some sound quality issues with this episode. I recorded these episodes, for those of you who don't know, I have 135-year-old two-year-old Rottweiler who got new toys today because he may or may not have a subscription toy box and he has been rolling these balls hitting the office door on and off, even though he's supposed to be with his dad. His dad is sitting in the living room, but he's letting him bounce his d*mn ball all over the house. I just wanted to give you guys a heads-up. These are really good episodes but I did want to let you know if you hear some bumping and thumping, that's why. Alright, onto today's episode.
What's up? What's up, party people. It's Leslie, your embodied sales and leadership coach. How are y'all doing out there? I'm doing amazing. Thank you for asking. Last week, we talked about one of the mini workshops that I offer called the Me Manual, and this week is all a part of the Fire Yourself Series. I don't know if I talked about this in the last one but I came up with this whole Fire Yourself Series because all of the small business owners I work with are typically in one or two positions in their business.
One, they're in what I call the winter of their business, meaning that they've been doing this for a long time and they're ready to sell it. They've built an asset that they are ready to sell. Or number two, I'm working with clients who are ready to step away from the day-to-day of their business so they're ready to sell it. They still got many, many more years that the Lord should grant for them to be in their business, but they do know that they're ready to step away from being the face of their business.
They're tired of teaching all the classes. They're tired of doing all the tattoos, they're tired of ringing up weed at the front desk. They're ready to transition into working on their business as opposed to working in their business. I know that sounds so cliche, but it is true. That's why I came up with the Fire Yourself, so whether you're trying to sell your business, positioning your business to sell it, or if you're just trying to get away from the day-to-day, you're going to need to fire yourself from the main role in your business.
These mini-workshops are designed to help you do just that so you can fire yourself and let your team step up so that you can get some time freedom away from your business. Last week we spoke about the Me Manual and this week we are talking about Team Meetings That Inspire. Really, my motivation from this came from when quiet quitting was going around heavily. People were talking about never coming back to work.
I don't know about y'all but that sh*t always had me befuddled. I was like, “What? What are people going to do? How are y'all going to go live if y'all aren't going to work? What are you all going to do? Help me to understand it.” But then I also started finding out that folks are making $60,000 after going live on Facebook. Ciao. Let me drop it in the comments for you guys to follow this guy. His name is Darius Cooks. He's a local chef. He's a chef from Chicago. He has a line of cookbooks and he does these dinner parties.
Lately, he's gotten like skillets and air fryers, all the sh*t you can buy from Alibaba and he's had a private label. He's got some cookware stuff that you can buy or whatever, but here's the deal: He has built such a community and I wondered, I'm like, “Why does he go live so much?” Okay, guys. I do my fair share of watching TikToks. I'll go down the TikTok rabbit hole in a minute because I enjoy the content on TikTok.
I think it's funny. I like animals. I love dog videos. I like dancing. TikTok is a great place and I love to laugh. It's just filled with comedians. I'm not pooh-poohing on TikTok or spending time on social media. But I was like, “D*mn, he wanted a multimillion-dollar business. How was he able to go live full five times a day?” because that's what he does. He goes live literally four or five times a day. Well, what I found out is that brother man makes between $55,000 and $60,000.
Did you hear me? $55,000 and $60,000 per month, not year, per month by going live on Facebook. I said, “Oh, this is why folks ain't getting no jobs. This is why folks ain't coming back.” Let me start getting a check from Facebook. There's $50,000 a month. Now keep that in mind. That's what he's getting from Facebook going live. He got a whole nother brand of cookbooks, dinner parties, and stuff. Brother man, I think it was last week, had a million-dollar day selling cookbooks and cookware.
Small businesses [inaudible] thing. But I went down a rabbit hole. I'm sorry. I'm coming back. But I was just like when people were talking about they won't be coming back to work, I was like, “What the hell are they going to do?” Well, I guess they become social media influencers. I guess that's what we do these days. Social media influencer is a real gig.
But anywho, squirrel, I'm bringing it back to why I came up with Team Meetings That Inspire was because during that conversation of people not returning to work, people quite quitting and all the things, one of the major complaints that employees were lodging about why they didn't want to come back into the office was because they felt like they were a lot more productive working from home or working remotely. They said one of the things that kept them productive was that they weren't spending time in unnecessary meetings.
That was a major complaint from a lot of the employees who were polled and interviewed. It was like, “We're sick of all these unnecessary meetings that could have been an email.” Trust me, I've had my share of meetings in the past too where you walk and go like, “This sh*t could have been an email. We did not have to come in here and spend 30 minutes listening to this or an hour. This could have absolutely been facilitated via email.” I know what that's like.
It made me start thinking about what made my team meetings work really well and I wanted to pass that on. Because in small businesses, when you're doing everything, it's really easy to feel like you don't need a form of meeting because you're working with these people day in and day out. But if you want to have strong communication and you want to make sure everybody's on the same page and we're all rowing in the same direction, you have to have meetings.
I'm like, “A leader without meetings is not a leader at all.” Because you aren't communicating. People are catching information. You're not communicating information. I'm saying I know some of you are like, “Well, I text my team. We're in Slack all the time,” but you will never replace belly-to-belly, face-to-face where you can read people's energy and their reaction to things and they can see yours. That will never be replaced by digital means.
But it did get leaders, I know it did for me, even hearing it, again, just making me take a look at what meetings am I having, and are they even necessary. Then for the necessary meetings, how do I make them more engaging so that my employees don't walk out like this sh*t could have been an email? That is what team meetings that inspire is all about.
How do you run meetings? There are different types of meetings so why don't we start there? I go over the three types of meetings, and there are more but for our purposes, it's really there's your daily meeting, and your daily meeting is with your right-hand person (your executive assistant, COO, studio manager, store manager) you meet with them daily, and those meetings are typically 10 to 15 minutes, 20 minutes tops.
The purpose of those meetings is basically because they work right hand with you to make sure that they are aware of what's on your calendar, anything you got coming up that must happen that they need to be a part of. Those are quick, “Make sure we're on the same page. This is how you can support me, how can I support you.”
Then there are weekly meetings, and that is with all of your direct reports. Again, very similar to the daily meeting, but it's really just about how can I support the team. It's an opportunity for the team to bring things to you and for you to be there to support them. That's really what it is, is a communication building, a call for wins, celebrations, that sort of thing, but it is not an administrative meeting. It is not a disciplinary meeting.
That's one thing that I will tell you if you're thinking about your meetings is you always discipline in private, you celebrate in public. That weekly meeting should be a meeting that people leave informed and also encouraged. That's the big piece of it is that they're encouraged when they leave out so that they are ready to take on what the week has to offer them.
Then there's one on one meetings and one on one meetings are developmental meetings. If a person is doing great, it's to celebrate and makes sure that they have all the support they need to get to the next level. Problem-solve with them, brainstorm with them. If someone's not doing so great, again, it's about what support can I give you so that you can get back on the right page? It’s a correction meeting. It's a disciplinary meeting, but all of that's done in one-on-one meetings. Those are the three types of meetings that we focus on in Team Meetings That Inspire.
I basically go through how to set up an agenda for those three types of meetings. We really focus on the team meeting to show you “Here's the cadence,” so when you walk out of that workshop, you actually have an outline that you can use to follow to set the agenda for every meeting, which brings me to my next point for this podcast.
You should never have a meeting without an objective. You should never go into a meeting without knowing “This is the outcome that I want to have as a result of pulling my team away from their jobs to me.” Because when you think about how much you're paying a team member, when you think about how much money is being lost when someone is standing in a meeting, it'll make you reconsider “How many of these meetings do I need to have?”
When I was in sales, every time we were standing in a meeting, if it took an hour, that was an hour away from the phone, that was an hour that I wasn't meeting face-to-face with clients. When I'm not on the phone, if I'm not meeting face-to-face with clients, guess what ain't happening, we ain't making money. It's very expensive when you've got team members taking time away from their jobs to meet with you.
You better make sure that this was meeting-worthy and that people are going to walk away with what they need to get their jobs done. If you go into a meeting, there's never a time when we're just going to have a catch-up meeting. No, it needs to have an objective because if you just need to give some people facts and figures, you can put that in an email.
What's the purpose of this? What is the objective to have in this meeting? Then how do you encourage your people to get involved in the meeting? When I talk to leaders who don't want to do these meetings, I always hear the same thing, “If this is you, I can't see so you’re good. You can admit it, you can raise your hand because nobody will know what you have done.” But the truth is they always tell me “I don't have time to meet. I'm so busy. I'm working the front desk. I'm on the retail floor. I'm teaching the class. I'm so busy. I don't have time to meet with my team.”
My response is, “Is that the cadence you want to keep? Is that the pace you want to continue to run within your business where you are always so busy that you don't have time to lead? You don't have time to step away? Is that what you want? Do you want to be in a prison? Is that what you want?” Obviously, most people are like, “Hell no, that's not what I want.” I'm like, “Okay, then you better make time for meetings. This needs to come up your priority list because this is how you empower your people so that you can step away.”
When you're coming up with these meetings, if you make sure that they are going to be powerful, meaningful, and move the needle forward, you will make the time because you will see the fruits of the meeting. You'll find that when your team has a very clear understanding of what it looks like to win, what it looks like to do a good job, what it looks like to have autonomy and freedom to do their job, you will turn around, look around, and be like, “D*mn, I got a whole lot of time to think, to strategize, to plan, to get us to the next level,” the things that you can only do as the CEO.
Putting that on your calendar and actually having a point for meetings is all what Team Meetings That Inspire is about. Also, how do you get your employees engaged and involved in the meetings? Because that's another thing. We're going back to the time because even when you're putting together the agenda for the meeting, it's a lot for you to have to run large meetings every week on your own.
What would it be like if your people could step up and they could use their wisdom to help coach the team? Here's an example. If you've got someone who has gotten exemplary compliments from customers, for example, let's say you've got a customer service representative who every time they get surveys back from customers, it’s always exceeding their expectations. Wouldn't it be nice to have that customer service representative share some tips about what they do that makes customers so happy so that other people can learn and replicate those results?
That does two things: number one, it makes it not just the Leslie show, it makes it not just the leader show. It shows that you value your people and recognize their brilliance and their talents. Second of all, it takes some of the pressure off you to have to carry the whole meeting.
There are other smart people here who are much closer to the customer than you typically are, who can train, who can give inspiration, who can share success stories. Guess what, when people know that they are heard and valued, their energy towards meetings changes, they start looking forward to it. Because it's not just the leader show. This is our show.
If you are convinced, and hopefully, I have convinced you of the value of having a team that communicates regularly, when Team Meetings That Inspire pop up, hit me up, join us, get involved. Like I said, whether you take the workshop or not, hopefully, you got a couple of nuggets from this podcast that you can implement right away. Hopefully, I'll see you in an upcoming workshop. Until next week, you be well. Let's have a profitable week, a peaceful week, and I'll talk to you soon. Grace and peace.