You’re an engineer who was assigned to work with a team of different professionals in your company now. You’re very good at the technical aspect of your job however, when it comes to running your own team, you have a hard time dealing with your colleagues.
While it may seem that all of you get along well, you find it hard for all of you to have a productive meeting. Once all of you get inside the meeting room, you find yourself feeling unaccomplished with all the things you discussed inside it. You just know your meetings suck and you have yourself to blame for that since you are the team leader.
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Do not make excuses like, “Hey, engineering school didn’t teach me how to lead, okay?”
Meetings are crucial for the team’s productivity and it can affect how you’ll be rated as a team leader. With so many things to discuss, meetings can make or break your team. So how do you improve your team meeting?
Choose the right people involve in different meetings.
Engineering Leader Meeting Hacks (Source: Giphy)
When there are so many people present in the meeting, chances are you’re just wasting your time discussing things that are necessary. Getting insights from people who mustn’t really involve themselves in the issues needed to be tackled is also waste of time. So choose the right people who need to be present in the meeting.
If you’re worried about transparency, inform the outcomes after the meeting.
Not everyone has to agree, but everyone must commit.
Engineering Leader Meeting Hacks (Source: Giphy)
With so many opinions coming from everyone in your team during a meeting, it’s hard to make everyone agree with all of these opinions. You don’t want conflict and you don’t want people to think you’re playing favorites.
However, not everyone has to agree with everything. The only thing that matters inside a meeting is having everyone to commit to one thing despite their reservations about it. Make the team decide on final decisions. Facilitate properly but you have to understand they don’t have to agree with it. Don’t be scared if not everyone agrees. Just get the best possible solution and make everyone work on that.
Discuss the important things you need to solve.
Engineering Leader Meeting Hacks (Source: Giphy)
Meetings can be messy or awkward. People with different ideas and different personalities may clash inside the room and your job as the team leader is to keep the fighting from happening. Yes, they can argue but it doesn’t have to be a messy one. So instead of keeping the meeting light, discuss the important issues without leading into any fights.
Also, keep in mind that everybody should enter the meeting with the seriousness everyone needs to make it more productive. If no one does, expect a meeting with no structure and waste of time.
