TIMA Road Map #7: How to Hold Staff Meetings that are Both Productive and Fun

Graham: In this video, we're going to share with you how to make meetings fun. And to be honest with you, meetings can be rather drab and boring, but they have to happen to get your team motivated, to keep them on track, to know where you're at, make sure they're accountable. But you don't want to sit there and have them checking out. I know that we've been in meetings ourselves where you're just there watching the clock, you think come on. Phil: Hurry up. Graham: Hurry up. And you actually miss some of the most important things. Yeah, you may be there in body, but not necessarily there present mentally. So, what is a meeting and how do you run it? I guess really, they're the things you've got to identify. At our school we have a couple of power meetings, and they're really only about a five minute meeting before class. We have a rule, it's a saying Phil created, "D by three." And what that means is, our classes started at Dojo at 3:30. So, half an hour beforehand, we're all in our uniform and within that space, we have all their instructors come into one office or one area and talk about what the focus of the day may be. It could be events on, it could be appointments coming. Whatever it may be, that everyone's on the same page. That meeting is a two to three, five at the most and it's exciting, it's fun. There's even the hand in the middle at the end, and away you go. So, understanding what it's for. We do have quite a few different meetings that we operate. As a full time location, there are times when we have our managers come together. That's about an hour meeting. So again, understanding that what is it that we're going to do to keep them engaged for that entire period of time. Phil: So, daily we have the power meeting, D by three, weekly we have our managers' meeting about an hour, hour and a half once a week, where just the branch managers. Or if you're only a single school, just the key core group, the managers of the school or the head instructors would get together, and really strategize on where you're at, and where you want to go, and how to get the gap from the achieving and getting success. And then, what we have is our monthly meetings where we get all our instructor groups brought in as well. So, that's going from full time instructors, admin staff, paid assistants, volunteers. We try and have that once a month so that they can all come along, and take part in what we call "brain training" and visual training also. Another thing that we always are doing -- and we do it as martial artists as well, to your students in class, is mat chats. So, what we do is we train with our staff, the whole thing is an instructor should always train harder than their staff. So, we train physically with our staff twice a week for two hours a pop, so Monday, Wednesday, two hours 10:00 till 12:00. But throughout that, and especially towards the end, we'll sit down after we've all got the sweat on -- sweat, blood and tears. Hopefully, not too much blood...well, maybe not when he's around. [laughs] But the thing is, we sit down and have a chat, and it's just a real, relaxed chat. We talk about training, we talk about what's going on this week, any requirements that are tough to teach, or anyone have any new, fresh ideas on how to teach and a requirement with a different twist as well. So, that really sums up most of the meetings, apart from the big top end ones, and we're having three monthly, like budget meetings and stuff like that. Graham: Guys, it may sound daunting for you guys who may operate a few of the smaller schools, you're thinking, "Jeez, what's a meeting? It's an informal thing." Look, I highly recommend you structure your meetings. And again, when I'm talking about that fun, we're going to add in those crumbs just in a second. But it's important that you understand what's the outcome of it. When we talk about our instructors we've trained, that could be just general. But if we want to really get specific and keep someone accountable, or they have a job role to do, it's important that you have their undivided attention. So, if Phil's an instructor at our school and we need to talk about an issue with curriculum whatnot, well then do it on the fly, we'll organize a time. And that's in a structured session, so we can get that result. But let's talk about our management meeting, and even our team meetings that we do once a week. How do we keep it fun? Something we've always done is try and start with some enjoyment. And we talk about when we teach students, PCP -- praise, correct, praise. How do we make it fun then interesting, and finish with a bit of fun again? Because what we like to do is, we open our meetings with sometimes one of those comedy videos, or a motivational video on Facebook, or YouTube. Whatever that may be, now it's only a two or three minute sort of gig, but what it does, it lightens up the mood. And we've all seen those videos we're talking about. Nothing that's sleazy or not conducive with your business brand, but something that gets them inspired. Then you've got your content, and obviously you're getting in there. When myself and Phil -- and this is a little bit of the fun part -- when myself and Phil actually do our meetings, and we're helping our guys to not stutter or stumble, ums and ahs, we actually have a couple of nerf guns that we have in our hands. Now, it may seem, "Oh, my God. What are you guys doing?" But it's one of those things where we would fire it in their direction and say, "Hey, you're stuttering and you're stumbling. Come on, be confident." And to be honest with you, it makes for an enjoyable meeting. Guys are sitting up, they're present. These guns are pressed against them in a fun way, but at the end of the day, they're getting that engagement. They're staying focused. If somebody's not focused, well there's a quick shot across their bow and they certainly sit up straight. So, there's a couple of things there, but as a finale as well too, is trying to make sure that you think, "Well, how else can we make our meetings enjoyable?" Now, time is precious, but having them focus and concentrate is even more so. I'm going to throw it to Phil about his hacky sack adventures because he's the king of that. But guys, it's always about having fun and enjoyment. Phil: I'm not even going to ask you if it's legal having a nerf gun pointed at your staff but you know, it works, it works. But other things that we do, and I know again, we do this within our martial arts school, it's called pattern interrupts. So, you want to be able to do that in your meetings. If you see that everyone's slouching around, tired, not paying attention. "Right, everyone up. Down on the floor. Get the hacky sacky out." For us Australian guys, get the cricket ball out, or some quick games you can have. "Guys, everyone stand up in a big circle, play the game of sevens." If you don't know what that is, let us know and we'll show you a game of sevens is being played in one of our staff meetings. But think about all the different pattern interrupts you can have that are just quick, short, sharp, lighten the mood. And get back in, and you're going to find that your meetings are much more productive. Your staff are going to want to come to meetings. And that's the key, they've got to want to come. They want to come because they want to better themselves, and better the business. So guys, I think that's about it for how we make our meetings fun, how often we have them. And you know, at the end of the day, meetings have to happen. So, if you're not having meetings, you're probably either stagnating, or you're going backwards. Meetings are that imperative moment where you are exploring, experimenting, innovating, and trying to find new ways to market your business to the community. So, make sure you're doing it, guys. Graham: Hey guys, don't forget. Any questions, throw it our way at admin@TIMA, T-I-M-A.com.au. We'd love to obviously help and answer as much as we possibly can do. So, don't forget to send them through our team. Phil: Also, if you're watching this on any other place than our website, so if you're seeing us on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, all over the place, get back to our website, TIMA.com.au where we have all the other video blogs, written blogs, podcasts. Heaps of great stuff there where you guys can engage and get more content as well. All right, that's it for us guys, so see you next time, but go get 'em.