Team Meetings for High Performance

We believe the single greatest predictor of your short term survival, your medium term growth, and your long-term success hinges on your team's ability to communicate. According to the Small Business Administration, 50% of businesses with at least one employee don't make it to the five-year mark while over 75% of franchises do. The reason, we believe, comes down to communication and collaboration. The seminal insight that Michael Gerber found in working with over 70,000 small businesses was that those that succeeded didn't just work "in the business," but systemically, dedicated time to actually working on the business. Now that requires a quick definition. When we say working in the business, this is where you will apply your technical skills to the customer or the client. Think about how a doctor practices medicine or a CPA practices accounting, or any of us that's financial professionals, practice wealth management. Working on the business is where you and your colleagues sit down and hone and refine your operations, your business, in ways to increase efficiencies, reduce the stress and strain on your personnel, and ultimately foster a more predictable and higher quality experience for your clientele. Gerber, unfortunately, also found that technicians really enjoyed applying their technical skills and simply didn't make the time to develop and apply their business management skills. What you'll find in this tool is three critical team meetings that are designed to: prepare you for each day's responsibilities and challenges. It will also help collaboratively create a strategic plan for responsibilities and roles. It will help you to foster the growth and development of each of your team members, and ultimately build a strong esprit de corps within your team. The three meetings that we define as accretive are designed to address three distinct needs that all teams likely have. Your tactics, your strategy, and your personnel development. Given how dynamic, volatile, and rapidly evolving our industry has become, it's your team's ability to challenge its assumptions, admit and correct its mistakes, anticipate your client's needs and constantly fine tune your business model that may not only ensure your survival, but also ultimately your success. We too often allow the demands of our practice to consume us in a way that meaningful collaboration and conversations get swept downstream for another day. Suddenly we look up and another year has passed and it's time to start the fire drills all over again. Let's take these team meetings one-by-one.

First and foremost, I'm going to start with the daily huddle. These are called the huddle because, well, they're quite simply that. Now don't let the brevity of the structure fool you. A lot can be discussed and accounted for in a short period of time so long as a team is efficient in their communication. Now to execute a daily huddle, we're talking five to seven minutes where everyone stands and reviews their key priorities for the day and where they may ultimately need help from other team members. Now, the counsel that we often coach to here is what we like to call the three Bs. Be bright, be brief, and be gone. This also helps to establish some mutual accountability for the day, along with alleviating any of those questions on what a team member or the team collectively may be focused on in that specific day.

Next, we're going to talk about weekly strategic meetings. Now I'm speaking directly to all the team leaders and any team member that's responsible for the actions or the suggestions that would be discussed in this strategic meeting. We would counsel that you meet weekly to help diagnose the practice, set or update business goals, determine progress towards those goals, and ultimately foster collaboration and create or enhance some mutual accountability. This is also a fantastic opportunity in those weekly meetings to review your team's capacity and reprioritize any tasks if or as needed.

Next, we think about the semi-annual development and this again, for team leaders or folks who are responsible for leading personnel within the team, at least twice a year, should sit down and have a very targeted conversation. We would often counsel offsite, if you can, in a more comfortable environment where we would ask you to focus on two critical things. First and foremost are the team insights. What insight does that individual have in terms of what's working, what's not working. Some areas of opportunity or ways to enhance what you collectively, as a team, are doing within the business. This allows everyone's voice to be heard through all levels of the organization. Next, we would then ask you to shift to the personal insights. What can they be doing to develop their own professional skillset? Whether it be for the existing role or for something they are building upon into the future. Taking the time, at least twice a year, to sit back and have that direct conversation with their personnel should enhance the trust and mutual accountability across the team.

And finally, we think about esprit de corps. Now, this is where we actually get to have some fun. I talked about working on the business so much and working in the business. This gives us an opportunity to leave that environment and collectively bond as team members, get to know each other personally, know about our likes, our dislikes, maybe get to blow off some steam and celebrate some accomplishments. We have some wonderful thoughts in our tool that are very easy to implement to bring that esprit de corps to life for you and your team members.

- Thank you for your time. I hope you found it informative. If you have any questions or for more information on this or other programs from Invesco Global Consulting, please reach out to your senior advisor consultant. Thank you.