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 Readers,
This week I’ve been running virtual learning sessions for one of my larger clients. The areas of focus are growth and deepening client relationships. A key subject that came up is managing time, and inside of that is the issue of too many meetings with no substance. One participant said, “Sometimes I don’t even know why I am invited to the meeting, and even after it ends I don’t know why I was there!” A friend in a financial technology firm told me this week he was also lamenting how frustrating it can be “to show up for meetings when you don’t know what to expect!”
This is not an uncommon experience, especially in larger firms. But of course it also happens in smaller ones. I’ll outline some best practices for having productive, efficient and useful meetings. If you are in charge and can manage implementation, hopefully you will use some of these ideas. If you are merely an invitee, put pressure on your senior management leadership to consider different ways of sharing information that doesn’t steal valuable time from team members who should be (and often want to be) focused on clients.
1. Set a desired outcome for every meeting. What do you want attendees to walk away with? Is this informational for seeking input, training, a product rollout where you need them to be able to talk about the product or service? Establish what the walk-away is before you send an invite. Share the expected walk-away – what you want your participants to do or know by the end of the meeting. Make this clear at the outset.
2. Think about who needs to be at the meeting. In a large organization, the tendency is to invite anyone and everyone who might have a role or a perspective. Instead think about who is necessary, and who can be get an “fyi” after the meeting. If it is a large group, can you rotate members and have different people join and charge them with sharing the information with their colleagues after the fact? How can you be thoughtful about sharing with fewer people and empowering them to be the translators and transferrers of information? Yes, it takes time to think this through as the meeting organizer. But consider how much time it saves your constituents from not having to attend every meeting.
3. Have an agenda. And even as importantly, create flow with your agenda. Never have more than seven topic areas (and three to five are optimal). Be clear with your agenda; instead of writing: “Review 2023 Financials” expand on this: “Review profit and loss for 2023 against expected outcomes and address areas of concern.” Let your participants know what the focus of the discussion is going to be for each topic. They may have a perspective, want to prepare information in advance or need to research something – be concise and clear about what each agenda item means. Share this in advance and stick to the agenda as much as possible.
4. Time track for the meeting. Be clear how much time you are allotting and how much you want to take for each of the topic areas. While you don’t have to share this with everyone, know how much time each piece should take. If you can share with people, they will appreciate it because they can help keep their colleagues on track. Keep the focus where you expected it to be and work to avoid time wanderers.
5. In the vein of having an agenda (did I mention how critically important this is?), let someone know if they are expected to present, comment or share data and have a perspective on something. It’s disrespectful to catch someone flat-footed even if you think they know their information. Some people don’t do well on the spot and need time to process and consider what they want to say. Be thoughtful about getting the best out of people, and give them time to plan and prepare.
6. Have a notetaker, a time tracking and an observer. These roles are all important. Notes should always be circulated after a meeting to share what was discussed and talk about what was agreed. Have someone dedicated to this job. The time tracker knows, along with you, what time is allocated to each topic. This person can call an audible if something starts to go off track. The observer is there to observe. In any meeting, there are lots of subtle signs whether people are listening and engaged or whether they are checked-out or impatient and frustrated. Make it someone’s job to watch and observe then report back. They shouldn’t be a mind reader – i.e., “I think Bev was having a bad day today and is probably sad about something.” But they should be an objective observer, “I would check in with Bev, she is usually pretty engaged but in this meeting she didn’t really contribute much.” This can help you with your follow-ups.
7. Have next steps - things that happened because of the meeting discussion or information sharing. This is called bringing closure: Recap for your participants what you set out to accomplish (the desired outcome), recap what you covered in your agenda and lay out the specific next steps (if there are any) and who will do them, when and how. Let people know how the progress will be updated to them. Keep the lines of communication open.
Meetings can be a very productive and useful way to share information, have teams come together and learn about company changes and updates. They can also be one of the biggest time sucks in an organization. But meetings are controlled by the people holding them. It’s in your hands and those of your colleagues to decide to approach them differently.
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. The firm has won the Wealthbriefing WealthTech award for Best Training Solution for 2022 and 2023. Beverly is currently an adjunct professor at Suffolk University teaching undergraduate and graduate students Entrepreneurship and Leading Teams. She 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.
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Beverly Flaxington is a practice management consultant. She answers questions from advisors facing human resource issues. To submit yours, email us here. 
