The Tone of a Successful Meeting

I know someone who works in the service industry. Just about every other Tuesday, a special meeting is called for all of the employees. During the meeting, my friend's manager goes down a bulleted list of things that the team is doing wrong and yells at them about it. My friend mentioned to me recently how much she hates these meetings and how discouraged she feels after leaving them. I wonder if my friend's manager knows that she is creating such discouraged workers through her ever-so-important meetings. I wonder if she even cares.

What are meetings for? What is the purpose of a sales meeting? Sometimes, there are specific issues that need to be addressed. Other times, the topic seems to be more general in nature. Regardless, though, what can we say is really accomplished by having meetings? I can tell you this: whatever my friend's manager in the scenario above was trying to motivate her team to accomplish, it was not going to happen. Meetings should not discourage workers; they shouldn't make them care less about their jobs. On the contrary, meetings should be inspiring.

Sometimes, a particular employee needs to be criticized. Even more seldom, an entire team will need to be called out. But, more often than not, the team is probably doing fairly well and can only use some improvement. How do you motivate improvement? By chewing out people for their inadequacies? Yeah, let me know how that one goes! No, I have a suggestion for my friend's manager: try inspiration instead of criticsm.

Make your workforce want to be more successful. Thank them for what they've done and encourage them to do better. Make them feel as if they are a part of your mission and their success is their success just as much as it is yours. It really boils down to the question of which results you want: do you want to feel better about asserting your dominance or do you want your team to improve its performance? My guess is that your overall goal is to get better results from your team. You don't do that by yelling at them; you do it by cheering them on.

The tone of a successful meeting is one of inspiration. It is one in which the team members feel motivated intrinsically to do a better job. Fear of the master's whip will only work when the master is looking. Don't be a slave-driver; be a cheerleader. The job is their job just as much as it is yours. They should want to be successful for their own sakes. Lead meetings that make them feel that way.