Short Daily Meetings To Improve The Efficiency Of Your Business
After many discussions with business owners and managers over the years, I have come to the conclusion that short, daily, morning meetings can improve the efficiency and profitability of businesses.
These meetings are solely intended to improve management and performance levels in business. It should be implemented by managers as their daily, early, morning meetings with their staff.
Time allocated for these meetings should ideally not exceed half an hour, maximum 45 minutes. It is imperative, however, that these meetings be conducted in a formal manner, according to a structured agenda and chaired in a disciplined way by the manager or chairman.
It must be made clear that this is not a social meeting. It could be preceded by a few minutes for social interaction and early coffee/tea, if so decided by the manager.
An agenda should be set for each meeting. This provides for daily discussions of a specific theme chosen for the week. This could be regarded as an ongoing, informal way of in-house training that provides for active and spontaneous interaction by all present.
Generic Agenda For Short Daily Meetings
A list of themes for discussions at daily meetings has been compiled below. The list covers a wide variety of themes or topics that influence good management. By brief, interactive discussions of these themes, a business forces itself to be aware of important issues that can help to improve performance and profits.
Attendance
Short report on previous day’s meeting by the chairman, focusing only on specific decisions and important issues
Brief report by each individual on the previous day’s work
Brief evaluation of work by chairman
Identify failures, weaknesses and mistakes and correctional steps
Emphasize successes of previous day
Goals for the day – involving every individual
Summarize the theme discussion of the previous day
Short discussion of the theme selected for the week
Action steps that can be taken as a result of the theme discussion
One day in every week should be allocated for the evaluation of progress with weekly goals and setting new goals for the next week, followed by the daily theme discussion.
One day per month is allocated for a longer meeting, discussing the monthly budget and determining new goals, target dates and action steps, followed by the usual short theme discussion.
70 Themes And 350 Ideas For Staff Discussions
Although there are 52 weeks in a year, and therefore only a maximum of 52 themes needed, a list of 70 themes have been compiled – to give a chairman a choice of themes appropriate to the business.
The recommended themes are divided into three categories:
Themes relating to the ability to work hard
Themes relating to working smart/effectively
Moral and ethical considerations in the work place.
Each of these themes is highlighted by 5 relevant items for discussion. Ideally, each individual should define his/her own positive affirmations for demonstrating these ideas in his or her conduct in the workplace and life in general. However, the meeting should decide on possible action steps to be taken to improve operations – as a result of the week’s theme discussion.
The chairman can select a theme from the list and lead the discussion or let alternate employees select a theme and prepare for introducing the theme. Having said this, it's of paramount importance that once started, consistency with having these daily meetings and theme discussions is imperative.
To allow circumstances and excuses to cancel meetings randomly will minimise their value. It will also be a sign of inability to adhere to a very effective system through a lack of commitment and discipline. And it will set a bad example to employees.
Benefits Of Implementing The SDM Meetings
Daily planning
Ongoing in-house enlightenment and training
Goal setting – daily, weekly, monthly
Reporting and control
Hands-on management
Interaction and involvement of all staff
Improve staff relations
Pro-active actions
Raise motivational levels
Improve planning and organizational quality
Performance evaluation and improvement
Detect problems, weaknesses and mistakes, timeously
Determine remedial action steps in cases of mistakes and failures, timeously
Ongoing interaction, communication and synergy between staff
Applying an effective management strategy
Demonstrate to all staff the serious and scientific approach to managing this business – nothing is being done ad hoc and randomly
Creating a well-managed business with the best possible results and profits
The content in this article was provided by Dr. Ben Cronjé.
Dr Cronjé has owned his own retail stores and has been involved in franchising for many years. He developed the Business Skills Assessment system, approved by FASA, for the assessment of prospective franchisees. Business owners and managers who are interested in implementing these meetings and getting the list of themes can contact him on bcron@iafrica.com.
