020: Dave Kashen - Enhance Productivity by Optimizing Regular Meetings
Dave Kashen is on a mission to help people love their work life by eliminating ineffective meetings. Did you know there are over 3 billion meetings a year in the United States, and over half of them suck? This is why Dave co-founded Worklife Inc., a tech startup that helps maximize team productivity without the meeting!
Meetings are a fabric of our working lives and they help with collaboration. That being said, when groups of people get together, it seems meetings become an ineffective experience and nothing substantial is achieved. So, why is that?
Well, Dave set out to find the elements that make up an effective meeting, and then simplify the process further by implementing software to optimize it.
Dave found several contributing factors to how a successful meeting occurs, breaking down the process in three stages: before the meeting, during the meeting, and after the meeting.
One of the factors to a successful meeting was to create an agenda before the meeting takes place. This makes a huge difference because it serves as a clear road map for those who are attending the meeting.
An agenda allows your staff to prepare for the meeting. It also opens up a collaborative conversation before the meeting occurs, as staff brain-storm for an ideal solution. Further, it clarifies to the team who needs to and doesn’t need to attend the meeting.
On your agenda, it's important to have a list of topics as well as what you want the ideal outcome to be. This will help direct your staff towards a goal as oppose to just spit-balling it.
During the meeting, one of the biggest problems is that each staff member ends up leaving the meeting with differing opinions on what the solution is to their problem or what the company's next big action step is.
So, to solve this, it is key to come to a shared agreement between everyone present on what the solution or next action step will be for the company before the meeting is over. This means everyone will be leaving with a clear goal in mind.
After the meeting, communication goes out to the relevant staff members who can help execute the plan and then it's just a matter of accountability.
The good news is, Dave's software makes this entire process incredibly efficient and effective. This software allows staff to collaborate and to come up with creative solutions in real-time before the scheduled meeting begins. When they attend the meeting, they already have several solutions to draw from and all they have to do is optimize the solution and create action steps before leaving the meeting.
Interview Links:
More Resources: ScalingUpBusiness.com: Learn about how growth coaching can help you and and your business see big results. Scaling Up Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you Scaling Up.
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Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher and I'm a certified Gazelles business coach.
We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).
