Entrusting the management of a meeting to one of your colleagues may be a clear departure from usual practice. But if you take a closer look at this idea, you’ll find it offers several advantages, five of which are described below.

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As a good company director or team manager, you inevitably organise a great many meetings with your team members. Supposing you allowed one of your colleagues to take over the reins?

A motivation boost

In delegating this responsibility to one of your colleagues you demonstrate a clear degree of trust. That gives a positive signal to the person selected and also to your team. Actually, it’s a good way to boost team morale and motivation. Why not go even further and introduce a “rotating chair” for your meetings? That would allow everyone to take a turn on a regular basis at shouldering this new responsibility and to feel more involved in the day-to-day decision-making.

A learning opportunity

You know only too well that organising and chairing an efficient meeting is not done “on the hoof”: it’s not just deciding the date and place but also drawing up the meeting agenda, sending out the meeting documents to the participants, organising the timing for presentations during the meeting and writing the minutes. Giving the opportunity to one or more members of your team to try their hand at this exercise will help them develop new skills. Of course, you will always be on hand if anybody has any queries or discussion points to raise.

Stepping back to observe

Once you are free of the responsibility of managing the meeting, you will have more time to closely observe the dynamics within your team and the behaviour of its individual members. This is a good way to get feedback and to make sure that your colleagues are still motivated and enthusiastic.

Getting everybody to contribute

Rotating the chair for each new meeting will also encourage people to speak openly. If you take a back seat in order to encourage a climate of confidence, your colleagues will feel freer to speak up, perhaps proposing some innovative ideas and constructive suggestions. This is a good way to stimulate the creativity of your teams.

You can learn something new

If you embrace this change in routine, don’t forget to obtain feedback from everybody at the end of the meeting. Even better, before it starts ask the meeting manager to provide this feedback. Considering their comments will provide added value to the way in which you and your colleagues run future meetings. It’s a win-win for everyone.

 

Ready for the leap forward?

Why not use this opportunity to hold your meetings at Factory Forty?