Rule 4: Write an agenda simple enough for a fifth-grader to remember. Your meeting should be so predictable that people will know how long it will last, what is expected, and when to speak. A good agenda creates that predictability.
Agendas weren’t in the picture when Geer first joined Fannin Remodeling as a carpenter. Production meetings were a disorganized free-for-all. “Instead of an agenda, they distributed notes afterward. Anyone could speak up about whatever was on their mind, and it would turn into a shouting match when something was off schedule,” he says. “Now the meeting has a very scheduled agenda and is run very tightly.”
His simple agenda looks something like this: budget, schedule, or manpower issues with each carpenter’s jobs; sales referrals; safety training; and company education.
Rule 5: Homework and prep work can trim back meeting time. Instead of gathering all her production managers each week for a lengthy meeting, Tammy Russo, senior production manager at Arlington, Mass.–based Feinmann Remodeling, expects a “status report.”
Every week, each production manager turns in a status report that hits the highlights of each job: projected completion date, budget, labor update, projected gross profit, scheduling (by category of subcontractor), payment information, pending change orders, and sales feedback.
Every other week, Russo meets one-on-one with production managers for 15 minutes, using the status report as the agenda. Afterward, they all sit down as a group. That one-two punch keeps the team meeting from running too long — and from becoming bogged down by minutiae. “It’s more of a strategy meeting,” Russo says.
The key is the pre-meeting prep work — the time spent on status reports, project plans, and benchmarks. Having all the info at their fingertips, she says, “sparks conversations like, ‘Do I have the right man for this job? Maybe we should bring in someone better at framing.’ It helps people ask questions and it helps us manage time.”
Rule 6: Really listen. Listening is the ultimate sign of respect, and it’s crucial to running a good meeting, especially with an audience of lead carpenters or production managers.
Consultant Daniels suggests trying this tactic at the start of any production meeting: “Ask them to talk about something good that’s happened this week. No one gets more than 60 seconds. Let them listen to one another.”
Encourage them to be specific. If you hear, “Everything’s going OK on my site,” ask more questions. The goal is to draw out useful information that everyone in the room can relate to or learn from.
Rule 7: Know when to stop listening. Ramblers need to be contained or the group will quickly lose faith in the benefits of the meeting. Flashing a “time-out” hand signal or saying “too much information!” is how Hannan’s superintendents keep one another from getting carried away. It’s one of the “Rules of Engagement” the group created for all meetings. When someone who’s having a great week gets carried away, Hannan says, a peer is usually the one to speak up and say “TMI!”
“I can appreciate that it’s going well for that person,” he says. “But these guys have to get back out there, especially the one who’s not doing too well. What we need is to figure out how to fix the things that are broken.”
Be respectful when pushing a meeting along, though. Brad Geer cautions, “If you don’t give a carpenter the respect he deserves, he easily takes offense.” Couch any cut-off in terms of how it benefits everyone (especially the rambler): “I’m not trying to cut you off; I’m just trying to get you back on the jobsite quicker.”
With these rules in hand, you can get them out the door and on the road fast — with time to spare for a plate of those ham and eggs.— Alice Bumgarner is a freelance writer based in Durham, N.C.