The Meeting Makeover: Structured Agendas That Drive Results

About the Guest:

Bryan Little is with Kata Solution LLC, specializing in helping companies create strategic visions, set goals, and build operational structures to achieve organizational traction. Bryan focuses on implementing the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) to improve business processes, ensuring accountability and measurable success.

Episode Summary:

In this episode of Chamber Amplified, host Doug Jenkins from the Findlay-Hancock County Chamber of Commerce delves into the art of conducting productive meetings with guest Bryan Little from Kata Solution LLC. As businesses continually strive to enhance employee engagement and operational efficiency, understanding how to manage meetings effectively becomes crucial. Meetings are often viewed negatively due to inefficiencies, but when executed correctly, they can be a powerful tool to drive an organization's goals forward.

Bryan shares his insights on creating and sustaining effective meeting structures, emphasizing the importance of punctuality, consistent scheduling, and well-defined agendas.

Key Takeaways:

• Structured Meetings: Establish a consistent timeframe, clear agendas, and a strong meeting coordinator to keep discussions focused and productive.
• Importance of Agendas: Having a focused agenda with time allocations for each item ensures meetings remain on task and valuable.
• Personal and Professional Integration: Begin meetings with short personal interactions to build team cohesion and create a smooth transition into the business agenda.
• Feedback for Improvement: Regularly score meetings to identify areas of improvement and maintain an effective meeting environment.
• Accountability and Discipline: Meetings serve as platforms for reinforcing accountability and solving actionable business problems.

Resources:

• Bryan Little's Contact Information:
• Phone: 419-722-0268
• Email: bryan.little@eosworldwide.com

Music and sound effects obtained from https://www.zapsplat.com

Transcript

0:00:02 - (Doug Jenkins): Hello and welcome to the show. I'm Doug Jenkins from the Findlay Hancock County Chamber of Commerce. On each episode of Chamber Amplified, we're examining issues impacting the local business community. Whether it's employee recruitment and retention, marketing, it issues, it's really anything that can impact your business. Our goal is to give our members tips each week on at least one way that they can improve operations and thrive in the current business environment.

0:00:24 - (Doug Jenkins): Let's talk about meetings today. We, we hate meetings. I mean, not all of us, but a lot of people hate meetings. Let's get to the bottom of that. Why do people hate meetings? They take too long. There's off task, nothing really happens. There's too many of them, that type of thing. But they are important to the structure of your organization or business. You have to have meetings. You have to know what page everybody's on. That's what we're talking about today. How can we do meetings better?

0:00:50 - (Doug Jenkins): Why is that so important? Our guest is Brian Little from Kata Solution LLC who we're going to be talking about. One, the structure of your meeting. How do you just set them up so that you put yourself in a position of success? How do you stay on task? That's probably one of the biggest things. Stay on task. What are the things that you need to have on your agenda, by the way? You should have an agenda. Mark that down.

0:01:11 - (Doug Jenkins): And we are also going to talk a little bit about how good meetings can be the foundation of a very strong organization. You just have to set them up right. Thanks again for tuning in. Remember, if you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, you can rate and review this show. It really does help spread the word. Now let's get into it. So we've had a few conversations here as of late. Excited to have you on here as a Chamber member and really tap into your world of expertise.

0:01:36 - (Doug Jenkins): I guess before we get into the topic of the day, which is just let's talk about meetings, let's give a little background on you and what you do at Kata.

0:01:47 - (Bryan Little): Yeah, absolutely. What I do with, I work specifically with clients really. My focus is on entrepreneurs and companies that are between 15 and 250 employees, although we do a little larger than that. But what I'd help them do really is create a vision for the company. I create, help them create goals and objectives and we really get out. We then we create a, basically we call traction. And that's what we're going to talk about today, honestly, how we get traction in the organization to really get the company moving forward. Meeting the vision of the company, meeting the goals of the company as well.

0:02:20 - (Doug Jenkins): That's always the million dollar question. And a lot of that comes down to you're sitting down with your team, whether you're the supervisor, whether you're a team member. We've all seen the memes, we've all seen the jokes. This meeting could have been an email. We're here to talk about meeting structure today. So where do people go wrong in meetings? Before we even get into some of the ways they can improve, what are the things you see that are just, hey, that probably isn't the way to go.

0:02:47 - (Bryan Little): Yeah. Well, first of all, Doug, I hope that people don't turn us off because we're talking about meetings, which is kind of like a swear word, or at.

0:02:53 - (Doug Jenkins): Least we're not having a meeting about a meeting.

0:02:57 - (Bryan Little): No, to answer your initial question, I mean, for me, my experience and what I do with clients is we really focus on a few things. They're kind of their opposite of what happens in meetings, and they're honestly, they're no brainers. First of all, make sure you start your meeting on time. Right. Secondly, make sure you have it at the same time every week. Right. Third is you have it basically. You have an agenda in play. Okay.

0:03:24 - (Bryan Little): And the fourth one really is key, which is you have a good, strong meeting boss, basically, or coordinator. And they're not shy about telling people to basically, hey, it's time to move on to the next topic. Or let's cut this one short for now.

0:03:38 - (Doug Jenkins): That's a really good point. And when we were talking about this last week, I think if know one area of meetings that I think maybe the first thing people would maybe look to cut, and that's not what they want to do, is at the beginning of every meeting, people are talking about, hey, how was your weekend? What'd you think of the game? That type of thing, you don't necessarily have to cut that out, but you have to have a limit on that.

0:04:00 - (Bryan Little): That's, that's the important part of actually starting a meeting, Doug, is having that initial five minute, what we call a personal and professional best. It creates a nice segue into getting the meeting started. It creates the ability for the team sitting there to get a little more cohesive and understand each other personally and professionally. And that's honestly a great way to kick off every meeting is by doing that. I'd highly recommend it. And that's something we will do in the, in the, the training that I have with clients. And, and leaders, because I think it.

0:04:28 - (Doug Jenkins): Would, it would just help build team. Like that's team building at that point and you're developing that culture. And I mean, as long as the conversations aren't inappropriate, that's kind of what gives you the, the, the character of your organization.

0:04:41 - (Bryan Little): It is honestly, the more you can get leaders together and they get to know each other. I used to have a boss that said we should get to know each other dog to dog, right? Which basically means I know your dog's name and you know my dog's name. That's how close we are to each other. And that made, that made 100 sense to me in the fact that, you know, when you're starting on a meeting, get to know each other a little bit more personally.

0:05:02 - (Bryan Little): You know, what you did on the weekend and, you know, kind of what kind of fun you had with your kids or what event you went to and tell me what you did professionally last week. Okay, you had a great win, right? You know, you made a customer happy, whatever it was. And so you share those at the beginning of the meeting. That creates a great foundation for the rest of the meeting to continue with success.

0:05:19 - (Doug Jenkins): So beyond that, obviously, then that's when more of the structure comes into place. In order to have an efficient meeting that is the length of time that it needs to be, but isn't overly drawn out, what are the things that you want to have in place?

0:05:36 - (Bryan Little): You got to have a good structure in place, a good agenda with time limits on each, on each item. And for me also, like I mentioned early on, which is the ability to have the meetings on the same day, the same time. You start on time and end on time. That we, that we people in the meetings, they, they finally understand that, hey, we're here to get some, you know, get some things done and make accomplishments and solve some issues.

0:05:58 - (Bryan Little): And once they have that and once they see the rest team is actually focused on that, then pretty soon everybody gets on board with that and you start knocking it out of the park when you're with your meetings for, for me and what I teach my clients is that the meetings are your, are your ability to meet your goals, objectives, honestly for that quarter and for the year. Because what we do is we set up a year, you know, meeting, then we do a quarter, then we do a weekly and by that transition throughout those, you know, annual weekly and, and basically your quarterly meetings, that's how you get traction going. Because I think it was Gina Wickman said that basically humans are focused in for about 90 days.

0:06:36 - (Bryan Little): Right. And after 90 days, they kind of stop thinking about what their tasks were. And so that's where you have the weekly meetings come into play to make sure it's happening on a weekly basis to meet your meet your quarterly objectives and your goals.

0:06:46 - (Doug Jenkins): I think that kind of folds into my next question. I think we've all been in meetings where it's kind of an around the horn, hey, what are you working on? That type of thing, anything like that, which is good, but also maybe could be structured a little bit better. It's good to know when what everybody's working on, but maybe it just needs to be divided up in a way that makes better sense.

0:07:05 - (Bryan Little): Yeah, there's, there's a few things that I will work with a client on, basically. And the meeting agenda really is made up of a few different items. One is the personal segue. We talked about that before. The next one really is your scorecard. Really understanding your leading metrics to understand where your business is going. Okay. And on top of that really is your rocks, we call them rocks are basically your objectives for that quarter that you need to get done to meet your annual goals and objectives.

0:07:29 - (Bryan Little): And then really the next part of that is really your customer employee headlines. Okay, we had a customer that was unhappy with us or very satisfied with a. Share that for a little bit. All those different items I just mentioned, you spent about five minutes on those items. The next item of a meeting agenda is the most critical, which really is your IDS or your identify. You're solving, you're discussing the problems and you're fixing the problems in that meeting. So you spend the majority of your time fixing those problems.

0:07:57 - (Bryan Little): And then you know you're gonna have some to do's as well, and you take some to do's away. And that actually comes back the next week too. You make sure the to dos are done.

0:08:04 - (Doug Jenkins): I like that. It all builds into that problem solving process. It feels like at that point you have primed the pump. Everybody's talked a little bit about the weekend, they've talked a little bit about what's going on. But now you have set it up to, oh, I was just talking to that client the other day, here's what they said. And then somebody else can go and run with that.

0:08:23 - (Bryan Little): Yeah. So you, you've pretty much covered everything you had in your business at that point. Right. The last thing you do in those meetings, which I, which we will do, is when I'll teach a client, basically is to score that meeting. So we call these meetings our L10 or level 10 meeting. So, like every other scorecard that we have, we also want to make sure our meetings are effective. They're valuable, and they're driving accountability and discipline as well.

0:08:45 - (Bryan Little): So every member in the meeting will rate the meeting on a scale from one to 10. Right. And 10 being the best and one being, you know, not so good. Right. And that actually then becomes an ongoing number that I help my clients track because that tells them basically how the effect of the meetings are and if they're meeting their overall goals of the company.

0:09:02 - (Doug Jenkins): Do you keep those surveys anonymous, like. Or are the respondents anonymous when they come back, or does it really matter?

0:09:09 - (Bryan Little): No, that's. That's actually when it comes to scoring that meeting, those are. Those are numbers for everybody to understand and work to. Because if you don't have that make the transparency there, you can't improve upon it. Right. It's. It's interesting. So sometimes, okay, somebody might say, well, this meeting was a 10. And that's. We're like, that's great. Well, tell us why it was a 10. What made it a 10 for you?

0:09:29 - (Bryan Little): Right. So the next time we kind of know what we need to go to, some people might say, well, it was a five. Well, hey, would you mind sharing why you thought it was a five? Right. Because those are all opportunities for the current condition to figure out how you can get better with your meetings, how you can make your goals and objectives easier as well for your company.

0:09:45 - (Doug Jenkins): So as the person who's hosting the meeting, you're kind of putting yourself out there a little bit with that feedback from the people who are in there. Some people might not be comfortable with that right away. And I think that's where you come in. And there's some coaching ahead of time before you even set up a meeting structure like this, where you're like, hey, this is the kind of feedback you're going to get. You have to be prepared for it. What does that process look like for you?

0:10:06 - (Bryan Little): Yeah, and again, I, you know, they're not rating me. I'm basically providing a structure for them and a training and a facilitation. But it's them, you know, they now take that structure, they take that model and they deliver the meeting. The leader delivers a meeting, and then they rate themselves on it. Right. And then what happens? Then it's okay. If we have an issue with this, how the meeting went today, then we put that down to what we call our, you know, our list basically, to prioritize and talk about. Okay, how can we make this better next time. And that's how we do that. We have that clarity, that transparency again, to figure out what we can do better.

0:10:42 - (Bryan Little): And we do that on a weekly basis with our clients.

0:10:44 - (Doug Jenkins): You mentioned it takes a strong meeting leader to keep everything on time and really cut things off at those five minute intervals if they need to do that, that type of thing. Does that always have to be the meeting leader? Can you have a designated person with a bell in the corner? Are there different ways to. I know at our Fresh Brew business meetings, we have several speakers. So to keep it on time, we actually do have a bell when their time is up. It's kind of become a running joke.

0:11:09 - (Doug Jenkins): I suppose if you have the right staff and right atmosphere, you can get away with something like that, but maybe not in all cases.

0:11:15 - (Bryan Little): Yeah. And I did mention which basically is the second person in that meeting. And that's really the organizer. That's the person making sure the agenda is up to date. They're tracking the to do items they're going through, and basically that's the person that's also helping the organizer of the meeting stay on time. You know, and what I found working with clients is honestly, it's a challenge for them to have the structure for a few months, but once they get it down and once they feel like it's creating value for them, then it becomes so much more value. And in the long run, they actually, they actually save time, you know, because now they're really focused, they know what to expect, they're going to work on it, they're going to get it done, and then they're going to move on to the next thing they have to do.

0:11:58 - (Doug Jenkins): It feels like this is a good way to impress upon your team that this is a valuable use of your time. And that's probably where most people get pushed back against meetings, is that they just don't like, hey, I could spend an hour at my desk getting things done. This meeting needs to be a good use of my time. Getting that switch flipped is probably the half the battle here, if I can quote GI Joe.

0:12:23 - (Bryan Little): Yeah, correct, Doug. It's. I, I've been to some dumpster fires and meetings myself, right. I mean, I watched leaders just talk the entire meeting. I've watched leaders eat food in front of the rest of the team and, you know, all those kind of things and like, and I've seen these meetings where basically two or three members will go off and talk on their own. You have three to four different conversations going on, and that's because that's, because they don't feel like their, their time is valued. Honestly, that's what it comes down to.

0:12:50 - (Bryan Little): And that's where the structure that I help clients with, basically everybody has a part in that. And, and honestly, if you come to the meeting when you're not getting your part done or CEO of a score, a number in the scorecard that's not meeting a target, or you're not getting your to do's done, you're held responsible for that and you're held accountable to that. Right. And that's the whole accountability and discipline as well. From an EOS standpoint that we drive, that's how we get it done to a daily and weekly basis is through this meeting basically holding you accountable to you, what you have to get done.

0:13:18 - (Doug Jenkins): I imagine there's a flip side to this coin where we're kind of focusing on people who are like another meeting, whatever. But you can have an office environment where people get along really well and, and feels like family, feel like your friends, that type of thing. But then in that meeting structure, people are maybe tossing out a joke at and you know, just because that's the way you interact with each other.

0:13:41 - (Doug Jenkins): But I suppose that can also grind a meeting to a halt or get you off track. How do you deal with meetings with the groups that just like being around each other but maybe aren't great at staying on topic Sometimes?

0:13:53 - (Bryan Little): Yeah, it's, it's actually, it's controlled fun. That's what I call it. You know, I mean, I think having fun in the meeting and getting along with each other and cracking some jokes, I think that's awesome. That's a great foundation for a phenomenal meeting. It really is because you're feeling loose. But again, it's that meeting organizers responsibility to say, hey, that's a great joke, that's funny. But let's focus now on this topic we have right now. Right? And so basically again, the organizer holding those people accountable to really fixing what the issue is that they need to discuss. And for me it's, it's celebrating your wins as well during these meetings, right? If you're going through a scorecard, you're identifying, you're hitting the numbers, your targets and all those numbers, then let's celebrate that, right? That's, that makes for a good, you know, 10 score at the end of the meeting, right? Or if you have a great professional, you know, segue, that makes for a great, you know, 10 at the end of the meeting. And for me that's where you have fun in a meeting. You have some, you. You have some jokes and make poke a little fun at each other, but at the end of the day, you're there really to make sure the business advances.

0:14:50 - (Doug Jenkins): It's always important to keep that. I'm the worst offender of that. I. I can't resist a good joke. So sometimes I. I've been trying to be less that guy this year. That's my goal for 2025.

0:15:02 - (Bryan Little): Yeah, there's nothing wrong with it. Just like I said. What, Controlled, right? I guess.

0:15:07 - (Doug Jenkins): Brian, this is the tip of the iceberg. Obviously, when it comes to having a plan for your organization, meetings are just one part of it. I know that with kata, that's all about what you do. If somebody wanted to go through a process with you and say, hey, we. We need some help achieving our goals, can you help us get in line? What's that process look like for you?

0:15:31 - (Bryan Little): The process really is. Is fairly simple, Doug. I mean, I'll sit down with the company, the business, and I'll throw up. Throw them through the entire process. Honestly, you know what the EOS process is, what the model is, what they can expect from me, and if they want to engage with me, then basically the first thing I would do, I would call a focus day. And that's honestly where the. On the very first day is when I train them how to have a good meeting.

0:15:55 - (Bryan Little): Because that's so critical for their success. Right. Amongst other things as well. But the meeting, training, and facilitation during that first day is one of the things I focus on, because that, to me, is where they get the traction in the company. So I'm happy to have a conversation with anybody about even a phone call if you want to have a conversation. But typically the best thing to do is to sit down with a leadership team together, and I stand in front of them and I go through how this is all going to work, and then at the end of that meeting, typically, they will know if there's something they want to engage in.

0:16:22 - (Doug Jenkins): I think what's interesting, and we talked about this on our Meet Our New Members video that we did on the chamber social media pages a few days ago, is that this isn't something that you just came into. This is something that you believe in. You. You worked with a company that went through this process, and you liked it so much and saw it work so well that you decided to go to work for this company.

0:16:45 - (Bryan Little): Yeah, that's correct. This is. This is over 25 years of seeing some phenomenal things in business and seeing some really bad things and you tend to learn more from the bad things you go through. And from an EOS standpoint, what I, what I did there and what I, the, what I, what the involvement I had in it and seeing it run the organization, I just saw the results and I saw, I saw an organization where people were happier in the day to day work. They lived a better life outside of work as well because things were getting done in the business and there was a format for it and you're getting traction.

0:17:16 - (Bryan Little): And that to me is just something everybody should have. Honestly, there's no reason to go into work and be frustrated and angry and, and avoid meetings. There's a way around that, there's a way out of it. And to me, the EOS model and the tools really just it's the foundation for that success.

0:17:32 - (Doug Jenkins): Brian, if someone wants to have that conversation with you, what is the best way to get in touch with you?

0:17:37 - (Bryan Little): Call me 419-722-0268 or they can email me at Brian Little O S e o s worldwide.com either way, thanks again.

0:17:50 - (Doug Jenkins): To Brian for joining us on the podcast. I'm not going to lie, I do enjoy a good meeting, but there are some caveats with that has to be on point, has to be on time. I'm good to go in that. I like being able to exchange ideas. Oh, you're working on that. Oh, here's an idea for that. Oh, actually somebody could give me an idea for something. And that spirit of collaboration is something that I very much enjoy, but it really has to be done well.

0:18:14 - (Doug Jenkins): One thing we really didn't get into a ton was about the number of meetings you have a week. I think it goes without saying, keep them low, one a week. Unless there's some emergency situation, something like that. Doing something quarterly makes a lot of sense. That's bigger picture. And then of course, annual planning, always a good idea as well. You can always get in touch with Brian to talk a little bit more about how to structure that, but on point, on time, as few as possible. And I think you'll start to see some more productivity out of your meetings.

0:18:43 - (Doug Jenkins): Chamber Amplified is a free podcast for the community thanks to the investment of members from the Findlay Hancock County Chamber of Commerce. Because of our robust membership, we're able to focus on providing timely information to the Findlay and Hancock county business community, run leadership programs for adults and teenagers, and be an advocate for the area. That's all while providing tools to help local businesses succeed. And if that sounds like something you'd like to be a part of, just let me know. We'll talk about how an investment in the Chamber not only helps strengthen your business, but the community as a whole.

0:19:12 - (Doug Jenkins): And that'll do it for this week's episode. If you have ideas for topics we should cover in the future, send me an email. Djenkinsindleyhancockchamber.com thanks again for listening. We we'll see you next time on Chamber Amplified from the Findlay Hancock County Chamber of Commerce.