Weekly meetings and how to keep employees excited

[tedi055]

Hello all, I normally hold weekly meetings with every company I currently own. I’ve been having a challenging time with one particular company; for some reason the associates seem to lose interest in the meeting normally causing some to fall asleep. I always make sure to keep the meeting interactive in order to prevent things of this nature from happening.
Anyone out have any tips on what I can do to make sure everyone is on board and exited every meeting?

[Dave A]

Is this one company not performing as well as it should by any chance?

One of the most important things IMO is to be excited yourself. Not over-the-top can't-sit-still excited; just have a positive energy about you. Even the most mundane discussion gets life if you tackle it with positive energy.

Try it - it tends to be quite contagious.

[tec0]

Itching powder comes to mind. But more to the point caffeinated beverages and perhaps a short debate to get people fired up can be a good start to your meeting then lead them to short distractions pointing at performance and perhaps allow for feedback. Candy is always a winner if the group is small enough. Still keeping somebody’s attention for longer than 15 minutes at a time is really difficult so space your interactions within 15 minute intervals.

[adrianh]

Meetings

We used to have a daily conference call to discuss support issues. The MD always hosted the call and it was an absolute pain. He would tell the same lame jokes, talk about his new aeroplane and dish out work with no regard for the current workload. Everybody hated his guts, but the companied paid well so everybody stuck around. People would doodle dirty drawings and swearwords about the guy and everytime he opened his mouth sumbody would pull a face or mock mastrubate under the table (even the women).

The guy simply never realized that everybody hated his guts and thought he was a twat.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that this applies to you, what I am saying is that there may be other underlying reasons why the meetings fail. Maybe they hate the manager, maybe they fear the manager or maybe they just don't care.

I found that the best way to put people to sleep is to use Powerpoint. The presenter reads off the screen and then goes on to talk about each line as he reads the line. People tend to read the entire screen and switch off. Another thing is to talk at people, we fall asleep when the presenter waffles on for an hour about things that we really don't care about. I find the best thing is to interact with people in a fairly informal way during the meeting. The same applies in meetings where you sit round a table and talk about your issues, each guy gets 5 minutes to talk and then keeps quiet. That guy, say the programmer, is awake for 5 minutes and then switches off. He couldn't care less about topics that don't affet him. I found that I would sit through meetings like that and do my to do list, write, draw or something simply to keep awake.

[tedi055]

Very good guys, Ill start to implement newer things now. i'm not sure what i'm doing wrong with this particular company but i don't have the same problems with the 2 other companies I lead.
thank you once again for your help.

[daveob]

The first person to fall asleep gets to pay for the lunch / snacks after the meeting.

If their cell phone rings they get the drinks bill.

[tedi055]

Hello again, I'm happy to say that I've implemented some of the tips i saw here, and had very good results. I've made my meeting shorter now amongst other things. Ive also made sure to make the meetings more interactive, which helps every one to stay on their toes. Thanks guys, ill keep you update on anything new.

[Mark Atkinson]

One of the most important things IMO is to be excited yourself. Not over-the-top can't-sit-still excited; just have a positive energy about you. Even the most mundane discussion gets life if you tackle it with positive energy.

Try it - it tends to be quite contagious.

This is one of the life lessons I've taken to heart over the past year or so. Maintaining a positive attitude about everything inspires those around you to do their work, causes employees and others to look up to you and makes people actually WANT to work with you.

Also, don't you find it to be such a drag working with negative people? Working with positive, ambitious, excited clients inspires and motivates you to do your best work.
I read an extremely good book by Michael Port called "Book Yourself Solid". One of the first lessons in the book was to identify your "ideal" client as well as to identify clients of yours that were less than ideal. He says to cut loose the "dud" clients and select the clients you work with, picking the ones who inspire and motivate you.

This was actually some of the best advice I've ever taken on board. It's made my business life so much more enjoyable. I mean, who doesn't want to be surrounded by positivity??

[Dave A]

Also, don't you find it to be such a drag working with negative people?

This is one of my gripes with the Labour Relations Act - you can't just sack an employee for being a negative person.

They're unhappy in their job. They drag everyone around them down and ultimately are harming the organisation. They're rarely big enough to chase what they really want out of life (unless their life mission is to make the lives of the people around them miserable too ).

If they're not prepared to do it themselves, why can't I just set them free?

[Mark Atkinson]

Too true. I was mainly referring to negative clients, which are really annoying! I guess it's just the same with employees, too.

Negative people in general just P*$# me off.

[adrianh]

>>Negative people in general just P*$# me off.

...but people that are too positive are also annoying. I worked with a guy, we used to call him ProzacMan, he would bounce off the walls all the time. We had to go to a client once to sort out a hell of a problem after their server crashed - old backups, faulty tape drives.etc...Yet this twat was standing there with a fat smile, all happy and going on about how its not a problem.

Anything extreme is problematic, negativity, positivity, optimism, pessimism, etc. Over positivity is painfull when you know that there are many issues that have been overlooked but being over negative brings others down. Being eternally optimistic is dangerous and being pessimistic is depessing.

As the Greeks said "Moderation in all things"

With regards to customers: "The customer is always right" is total garbage. You know, sometimes the customer can be a total twat, yes, I speak for myself too. I have a very short fuse early in the morning or if I'm in a foul mood and sometimes the service providers get to bear the brunt of it. I believe in the following "Provide a quality product at a premium price to a quality customer". I find that the customers that give me the most grief are the ones that spend the least money. They try to haggle over every price and honestly I do not have the time or inclination to haggle over a R300 luxury item. Buy it from me, and if you feel its too expensive then don't buy it from me. 80% of the customers are satisfied, 10% are overjoyed and 10% will never be satisfied (because it is their nature - some people are in their element when they can complain all the time).

[ava_camen]

snack time in between or after the meeting so they can look forward of something.

[cibecs]

Try a company blog!

[sikander7860]

make them stand up and do some stretches before the meeting.
Bring in some free coffee or tea.
Add some humour

[johnwarner75]

How long do you 'take to the floor' for? Long enough to send them to sleep?