Beverly Flaxington is a practice management consultant. She answers questions from advisors facing human resource issues. To submit yours, email us here.
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Dear Bev,
Annoyed doesn’t begin to describe how I feel.
My company of about 150 people has meetings about absolutely everything. I get it; they want to communicate and share information. However, no one manages those meetings! No one makes sure the topics are on point, that people don’t blather on about nonsense and that we are kept to the timeframe given to us. Today I had a client meeting and I was trapped at the back of our conference room while a colleague shared information that wasn’t relevant to the topic of the meeting.
I am a fan of sharing information and I value clear communication. But I don’t value wasting my time and focusing on things that don’t benefit any of us or the company and what we are trying to do. We are all so busy – “not enough hours in the day” is the mantra around here. We keep a focus on doing the right thing by clients, improving our product quality (we are a technology company serving financial advisors) and on being attentive and responsive. But the way we operate internally is counter to this. If we valued clients and always doing the right thing, we would not waste time on things that don’t really matter.
I’m at a VP level in my company – not top or bottom of the ranks. What can I do to shift this culture, so we are more about efficiency and effectiveness in our communications? I am going to come off as a naysayer or someone who doesn’t think the team deserves to know what is going on if I debate the merits of our meetings and the way we communicate.
J.D.
Dear J.D.,
I can sum up your frustration by noting your firm’s good intentions but poor delivery and implementation. Open communication is important. Many companies default to everything in writing – emails or things posted to the internet – but very few people learn and retain by reading something. As an undergrad and graduate school educator, I know the importance of experiential learning, not just sharing important information in written or even oral form. Having people come together to listen and learn – and experience – is important to developing an engaging culture.
Few firms have learned the art of good meeting management. While a meeting is often the most efficient and effective way to share something, the looseness with which most meetings are planned and run detracts from the possible positive outcomes. As a VP in your company, you can share insights and information and (at a minimum) provide a roadmap for how the firm could interact differently. Send these ideas to your leadership first and see if you can get buy-in. Here are some thoughts to put in writing – I’m sharing these as if I were you writing to your leadership. You will want to choose what works for you and use language that is most comfortable for you:
- While the firm does a great job of wanting to communicate and share information, are we are doing it in a way that allows for the greatest impact on our colleagues? Sometimes meetings go off track or are elongated, and this can lead to employees being distracted or disengaged.
- We could consider some best practices for meeting management in order to get the most of our communication efforts.
- Let’s try the following going forward:
a. Circulate an agenda in advance of every meeting along with time allocations associated with each topic. This could help us keep colleagues on track and show how much time we expect to devote to each topic.
b. Engage certain employees in advance to share their insights or feedback. This will help spread out the communication and have other members of the team involved in an organized way.
c. Embed “breakouts” or opportunities for team members to talk to one another and collaborate in the meeting if we are trying to reach a conclusion or find options and answers. This will help us to more efficiently allow people to share their ideas and get everyone talking about what’s important.
- Follow-up is key. Let’s choose someone to be the notetaker in our meeting. They will be responsible for following up via email with a recap of what has been discussed and bullet points on next steps. This person could help us assign responsibilities and accountabilities for next steps before the meeting adjourns.
- Assign a timekeeper. This is someone who would manage the agenda and let everyone know how much time is allocated to each section, how much time is remaining, etc.
Try different ways to meet. You could have shorter, 35-40-minute meetings. Have standing meetings where no one gets a seat, and everyone stands up. Rotate leadership at meetings. Have specific topics and areas of focus laid out for a series of meetings.
There are many ways to be more efficient and productive. You just need to open the dialogue and get your leadership talking about options.
Dear Bev,
Why do people feel the need to convey everything, including what they don’t need to say, in an email? I just got done reading my ninth email of the day that goes on and on with a number of items and no call to action whatsoever.
I want to respond, “When you learn to write, I’ll respond accordingly.” But as a leader in our RIA, I cannot do this to team members. How do I coach them to be more succinct and in doing so be more effective?
T.L.
Dear T.L.,
As a leader in your firm, you are in an excellent position to provide feedback and coaching on email best practices. I wish more leaders would recognize the need for this and coach to it! You could recommend implementing best practices across the firm to ensure emails are read, responded to and as efficient as they can be. No one will push back when you say you want to make the process of sending and receiving emails more productive. In the time-management studies I have done with groups, I often find this to be the biggest “time suck” of anyone’s day, irrespective of role or level.
Send an email outlining the best practices. Include the following:
- Use the subject line to outline what you are asking for or what you are suggesting. “Requesting feedback by March 1, 2023” as an example.
- Use bullet points to outline your key points – prioritize wherever possible. Stay away from lots of words and long sentences (no paragraphs!).
- Always open with what you are hoping to have as the desired outcome and take-away.
- Close with the take-away and what you are hoping the person will do, how and when.
- Have a date and deadline with clear expectations.
- Never cc people who do not need to be cc’d – keep the message focused on only the people who need it and can act on it.
Your team will be very happy to have some direction and will embrace the ideas. Effective communication is something we all strive toward!
Beverly Flaxington co-founded The Collaborative, a consulting firm devoted to business building for the financial services industry, in 1995. The firm also founded and manages the Advisors Sales Academy. She is currently an adjunct professor at Suffolk University teaching undergraduate and graduate students Entrepreneurship and Leading Teams. Beverly is a Certified Professional Behavioral Analyst (CPBA) and Certified Professional Values Analyst (CPVA).
She has spent over 25 years in the investment industry and has been featured in Selling Power Magazine and quoted in hundreds of media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, MSNBC.com, Investment News and Solutions Magazine for the FPA. She speaks frequently at investment industry conferences and is a speaker for the CFA Institute.