RUNNING AN EFFECTIVEMANAGEMENT HUDDLE

SHAWN BODAY

5 T IPS FOR

As with any business meeting, one’s where you gather themanagement team together to make key decisions on the fate ofthe business should be run as efficiently and effectively aspossible if you want to produce quality decisions, incite activeengagement from your team, and create opportunities forimpactful innovations and pivot points to your current strategy.

Management huddles can be an exceptionally effective means ofgathering business leaders together to arrive at quality decisionsregarding your organization in a quicker and more efficientmanner.

As a business leader, you should perfect how you run yourmanagement huddles, and you should enable leaders at everylevel of the organization to do the same.

Huddles can be scheduled on a regular or ad-hoc basis,depending on what the situation calls for, and you should feelempowered to use them whenever a decision would be bettermade with the input of several experts working together.

Here are five tricks you can use to best utilize managementhuddles in your organization.

You shouldn’t need more than 10-20 minutes for a huddle. Seta hard stop time from the get go, so you’re team focuses ononly the most important things that need to be covered. Ifyou open up the time too much, it’s easy for the meeting toquickly lose focus. No need for long intro’s or set up. Be briefand get straight to the point.

KEEP IT SHORTAND SWEET

To distinguish management huddles from other kinds ofmeetings, have your team stand. Standing keeps with thetheme of brevity that we are establishing. If no one has thechance to get too comfortable, they also won’t lose focus orget distracted.

In long meetings where people are sitting and have theirphones/computers in front of them, it’s too easy for peopleto stop paying attention all together. This means informationhas to be repeated, the group misses out on valuable insightsdistracted team members could bring to the table, andgenerally everyone is less engaged and more likely to letthings drag on longer than necessary. If you keep everyonestanding, it communicates that this meeting is not meant tolast any longer than it has to.

STAND UP

Because the huddle will be short, being prepared with exactlywhat needs to be discussed is paramount. Send out anagenda for the meeting ahead of time, so everyone knowswho is talking about what and for how long (most peopleshouldn’t have more than 2-3 min of information to share.)This will ensure everyone is prepared with exactly what’sexpected of them (nothing more and nothing less), and it willkeep the meeting on track and on time.

SET AN AGENDA

At the end of the meeting, assign each action item that wasdiscussed to a team member or group of members. Be explicitabout their responsibilities and your expectations. Then set afollow-up date/time.

ASSIGN ACTION ITEMS

After the huddle, write a brief summary of what wasdiscussed, including the action items that were assigned andwhen those are to be completed. Send the summary toparticipants to make sure nothing discussed was forgotten orleft unaccounted for. This will make sure everyone is on thesame page while giving you and your team documentation ofthe work that needs to be done, which can be looked back onlater to refresh everyone’s memories.

FOLLOW-UP

Remember, these meetings are meantto be quick, productive opportunitiesfor getting management on the samepage and pushing through decisionsmore quickly. Keep items that requiremore time and strategizing for othermeeting settings. The idea is to makeit easier to complete smaller, day-to-day action items, so they don’t getgridlocked awaiting inefficientapproval processes and or stalledfeedback.

CONCLUSION