Effective teamwork is an important aspect of any organisation’s success. A recent study by Stanford University showed that when people are treated as partners or team members – even when physically – their motivation increases. Motivation from your employees means more success and productivity for your company.

Teamwork has always been an essential capability for successful enterprises. But with today’s organisations undergoing disruption, and digitisation in an “innovate or die” economy, it is now more important than ever that employees can collaborate effectively across geographical sites, between business functions and within increasingly fluid job hierarchies.

According to a Gallup article, productivity reduces up to 21% due to the feelings of employee isolation. According to Harvard Business Review, Communication patterns improve more than 50% by socialising between the team members. According to Gallup Data , 63% of female employees with best friends at the workplace are likely to engage more than the rest of 29% .

According to Gallup Data, only 3 in 10 U.S. workers agree that at work, their opinions seem to count. But, by moving that ratio to 6 in 10 employees, organisations could realise a 27% reduction in turnover, 40% reduction in safety incidents and 12% increase in productivity.

“None of us is as smart as all of us”-Ken Blanchard

Productivity Benefits Of Team Gatherings

1. Sharing Ideas

One of the benefits of having regular team gatherings is that it gives everyone a great opportunity to share those great ideas. It helps in having an opportunity for everyone to share the things that they have learned during the week. They might have been working on a tax return and discovered that the software does few things that they didn’t know it could.

They might have discovered a new tax rule that nobody knew about. So team gatherings are a terrific opportunity to share technical ideas. You can share a video that you might have found beneficial or bring a guest that can talk on a subject matter for which the firm is not totally at least about.

You can do all these things in team gatherings for the entire team to learn new information and to share this new information.

2. Client Servicing

Team gathering gives you an opportunity for client servicing. In other words, you can share ideas on how you can service your clients better. In team gatherings, you can always make a point of talking about the things that you could do that would improve the way you service your clients.

There is where you can bring up any complaints you may have had or even the bouquets that you may have received. So you get a sense of what clients really hate and things that they really appreciate. Team gatherings put everyone on the same page as it related to that.

3. Internal Processes

This is another benefit of team gathering we get to discuss the internal processes. It’s an opportunity for everyone to vent about how we do things in this office. How the file goes from being picked up to be done to being printed to meeting with the client and all of those steps.

Oftentimes by having these team gatherings, every department shares the frustrations and works with the other departments. So that we can flush out all of those problems and make working so much better in the organisation. Usually, by doing so we also improve the quality of the service that we are providing to our clients.

4.Allow Better Buy-in

One of the tremendous benefits of having regular team meetings is allowing better buy-in. If you come up with a great idea and you present it to the team and you are saying ‘going forward here’s we are going to deal with this problem’. Obviously that’s a way of doing it.

But what you will find is that you will have a lot more success at running your office as a democracy rather than as a dictatorship. In other words, if I have a problem even if I know the solution, I am often a little bit reluctant to share the solution immediately. Instead what I would do is I would present the problem to the entire team and ask them to debate possible solutions.

This is very beneficial because they may come up with the solutions that you never thought of and that is phenomenal. Another benefit is that there’s pretty good odds that they will come up with the same solution you came up with. If they do so then the buy-in is usually a lot better if it comes from the team other than yourself.

The beauty is that when the time came to implement that solution, it would be better received and implemented because the buy-in was 100%, as the idea didn’t come from you as leader, it came from them. So they are going to be more readily happy implementing the idea that came from them than you.

5. Firm Culture & Loyalty

Another productive benefit of team gathering is firm culture. Having an opportunity to discuss and share is good for team culture. It builds a family and it is worth the money that it will cost you to have those team meetings.

Team gatherings and meetings also increase loyalty because employees will have a tendency of sticking and having greater loyalty if they feel they have a say into how the organisation is run. Team meetings will more than likely increase the loyalty from your team to stick around because of their flexibility to have their say. 

How To Make Your Team Meetings More Interesting?

• Change The Atmosphere

The first thing you need to do is change the atmosphere. In a lot of offices, meetings are an extremely formal affair, deviating from this trench. Consider changing the location to some place which is more informal.

If you are holding off-site meetings then you can go the extra miles and actually have a themed meeting. A good sense of humour and a sporting attitude goes a long way in making, even the most uninterested of meetings, into an interesting affair.

• Break The Ice

No matter how much you concentrate on the themes and special locations of your meetings, if participants are not willing, it will remain as boring an affair as it always was. Hence, the first thing to do is to break the ice between people and help them get their sense of humour out in the open.

• Define The Purpose Of Your Meetings

Take a step back and think about why you need to have this meeting. A clear definition of purpose will lead you to a clear structure for the meeting. Some common purposes are-

• Problem Solving
• Decision Making
• Team Bonding 
• Building Alignment
• Sharing Of Best Practices

Make sure all participants understand and buy into the purpose of the meetings.

• Set A Clear Agenda

Once you have found your purpose, you can create an agenda to achieve it. Subjects need to be covered with the duration for each topic and specify an indication of outcomes. Share the meeting well and advance with additional, if any background information that people need to read. 

• Set The Tone

As the leader of the meeting, you set the tone and model the desired behaviour. Are you formal or informal, light-hearted or serious, each of these styles will set a different tone. Leader needs to show each participant that they are being listened to and respected. A warm genuine approach will facilitate cooperation and collaboration during the meeting.

• Start & End Your Meeting On Time

Practise good time-keeping habits by starting on time and sticking to the duration. This avoids the natural fatigue that creeps in after a certain point during the meeting as the delegates are aware of the fact that this will be done at a certain time. So, they will be prepared for the same.

Punctuality may not get everybody on board to begin with but it will eventually catch up. This means that some of your delegates may be missing when you start meeting on time instead of waiting for all of them to join. But, as it is a mandated practice it will rub on to others as well.

If you get into the habit of waiting for people to arrive, you will not encourage punctuality. Ending on time is respectful to all participants of the meeting.

• Let Everyone Participate

It’s important that everyone participates in the meeting, shae ideas and give suggestions. To facilitate this, an open and respectful atmosphere is paramount. Let everyone share his or her perspectives and add value to problem-solving or collective decision-making.

• Have Fun

Encourage people to communicate in an appropriate but playful way. A serious idea does not have to be heavy hearted and morose laughter is an energising force. Contrary to old school beliefs, time is not necessarily wasted by adding levity and humour balance.

• Balance Control & Flexibility

Run the meeting but do it with balance. Your role is to keep the meeting on track, moving towards achieving its purpose and agenda. Stick to your topic, don’t beat around the bush or deviate from the original idea but be flexible enough to explore a new idea or approach. Even if at first it does not seem to move towards achieving your objectives.

• Allow Time For Some Creativity & Spontaneity

Ask questions to make your team. Participating in being approachable does wonders with your team. It encourages them to share feedback. Listen closely to what is being discussed as it will create an atmosphere conducive to idea generating and creativity.

• Review Understandings & Actions

At the end of the meeting review the agreed actions and agreements. Actions need to be specific, precise responsibilities, delegation of tasks to respected members, additional resources required for the completion and a deadline for completion are some of the refined and structured working systems.

One of the most discouraging situations is when there is a lack of good follow-through and many of the good ideas generated appear to have fallen into a black hole. Hence, a proper follow-up to help them with progressive blocks is imperative.

• Hold Parallel Team Discussions

Sometimes the outcome of a meeting gets bogged down when the expected outcome is not met. This often happens when you need other people, other people, more information, more time or a different environment.

When you see the meeting getting bogged down bring the discussion to a close and take an action to address the issue in a separate forum.

• Have A Meeting Rhythm

Don’t make meetings a once-in-a-while affair. Set a meeting rhythm where you meet at a timing interval to follow through with ideas and execution. Essential meeting rhythms provide the recurring patterns of discipline that demand accountability.

• Review & Evaluate

On a regular basis review and seek feedback on how well the meeting is being received and if it is achieving its purpose. If it is not, try a different approach like bringing in a professional coach or facilitator to intervene.

Tips For More Productive Team Gatherings

• Take A Step Back

Being a team leader should always give you your opinion as late as possible. In discussions, especially when you are brainstorming, if you stay in the background quieter, the more introverted team members will have the chance to step up. They will take the chance to present their own ideas and opinions. 

Consider the situation when as a team leader you briefly explain a problem at the beginning of a meeting and then you add ‘I believe XYZ could be a possible solution for our problem, what do you think?’. If you do this then there is a high probability that team members will not even dare to present their own ideas. 

Therefore, be cautious as a team leader and present your ideas at the very end, if at all. Let the team members present their ideas first.

• Step Outside

Let’s say you are the head of the development and sometimes you feel like you dominate a meeting. Even when you don’t want to do that, but somehow you are doing it. So, at the beginning of the meeting with your development team, briefly explain the problem and then give the team a job to come up with some ideas.

Now, just leave the meeting room and just say ‘I will be back in 45 minutes, please present your ideas to me when I’m back’. The interesting thing is that in such a meeting, shortly after you leave, someone automatically takes over and coordinates the meetings until you come back. 

You don’t need to pinpoint to someone who should take the lead. After 45 minutes your employees will present you with at least one idea. An idea that would probably not have been born if you had continued to stay in the meeting.

• The Bad Cop

Sometimes in meetings, it’s beneficial to openly assign the role of being the bad cop to a team member. It’s called the Advocatus Diaboli. This bad cop concept is especially useful when everyone agrees and there’s no dispute and no discussions where everyone thinks that it’s a great idea.

But if it’s an important decision, you have to be careful. This decision has maybe far-reaching consequences and in this case, it can be very useful. If a team-member willfully takes on the opposing role and questions the decision, even if this guy believes that it’s the right decision. 

He should challenge the decision and the team. You can deliberately assign this role to one of your team members.if you do so, points and ideas that have not yet been taken into account, may just come up. That gives the team the chance to make an even better decision