Meeting Mojo: Conquering Chaos with Highlight and Help

Episode 221:  Join hosts Lori and Vonda as they tackle the never-ending struggle of keeping team meetings on track. Discover their game-changing tip, Highlight and Help, that will help you maintain focus and eliminate off-topic tangents, whether you're leading a team or conducting an individual meeting. Say goodbye to meeting mayhem and hello to productive and purposeful discussions!

Sponsored by:
Flower Clique
Flower Clique Prep School
Real Life Retail Florist

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Let's just do it. Which is honestly the best way to roll it out because I think we overthink things sometimes. You just don't need to plan it. And I think it worked out perfectly.

SPEAKER_02 0:17

Welcome to the Business and Pleasure of Flowers. We're your hosts, Vonda LaFever and Lori Wilson.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

And we believe that business and fun are a perfect combination. Kind of like us, Vonda. Here we are, Lori. We're back. We're back. We're back again. Guess who's back? What's that song? That's some boy band. I don't know. You would know that. I would know. Oh, Backstreet Boys. It's the Backstreet Boys. That's who? That's who's back. Back again. Okay. I'm done. Okay. I'm done.

SPEAKER_02 0:50

I'm done. What's up? Well, we haven't had an opportunity to talk since I had a call last night with somebody who was really inquiring about Flower Click.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

Last night? After hours? Yeah. Working after hours? I can't imagine.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

You can't imagine that, can you?

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:08

But what was really interesting was this person was fairly new in the industry. And actually they met you up at Glyffey. Me? Oh. They set in on your leadership class. Were they nice? They loved it. Oh, good. They learned. They learned. But they were fairly new to the industry. And it was really somewhat eye-opening to me when I sit in calls when people are brand new and they don't have an understanding of certain things in the industry because I guess it's that curse of knowledge, right? We've talked about that before. And you're like, oh, yes, that is complicated. That really is something that's complicated. That in the the years that I've known that information, it's become so simple. Yeah. But when you step back and you look at a newcomer coming into things in our industry, Lori, you're like, wow, that is crazy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Yeah. No, I I get that. I totally get that. I think about when I first got into this industry, things I thought were just mind-blowing about the floral industry. And now they're just our day-to-day, right? So yeah, totally, totally understand that.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

Yeah. So that was my call last night. And it was really good. It's really refreshing for me to be able to do that every once in a while, to take that step back and say, okay, as a new person coming in, what is it that's really important that you should know? And some things that maybe you don't need to know now, but as you grow in your business and in our industry that will be more valuable later than right now.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

You know what I'm always curious about? And I know this has nothing to do with what we're going to talk about, but that triggered my brain. When I talk to a person that's new to the industry, when they call want to know what flower click is, and they're new, I'm so curious. What led them into this industry? So, what the person you talked to, did they just decide to buy an already existing business? Or are they a startup that they're just passionate about flowers? Do you know?

SPEAKER_02 3:27

Yeah, they bought an existing business. Oh, okay. So they wanted to run a business together as a family. Okay. And so they bought an existing business that's very successful. So walking into a successful business, and then you just kind of keep things the way they are for quite a while because it's like, hey, it's not broke. Let's not try to fix it. Right. Then at a certain point, you're like, well, maybe there are some things that we can do differently. Right. So they've done a really great approach on how they're working in the business, you know, trying to now learn more and make changes to maybe make them more profitable or make the ease of operations.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

Did either of them have experience with flowers prior to this? Wow. That's what blows my mind. Right, right. Like I would be so intimidated if I wanted to buy a business. My first thought would not be, oh, I'm just gonna buy a flower shop. Because I would just think, I know nothing about flowers. Like, how could I run a flower shop? It'd be like me trying to buy a restaurant. I don't have experience in a rest food.

SPEAKER_02 4:36

But that's exactly what I was gonna say. That's why people compare it to a restaurant so often is because of the perishable. They have the same thing, you know, I have a perishable with food, right? Which is a little more serious, right? And it's perishable with flowers, which you can lose a lot of money real quick. So, yeah, I'm really kind of in awe of this business and really have a lot of respect for people who do this.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

Yeah, you know, has there ever been any like data, like long-term data that shows uh success rates of people uh that uh whether you buy an existing business or you have a startup, like which one succeeds better? The success rate, do you know?

SPEAKER_02 5:21

I don't know that for sure. Uh this SBA, the Small Business Association, probably has that. When we were doing real life retail florists, I know we do have some data in there that is true, like, you know, within the first two years, how many businesses fail?

SPEAKER_01 5:36

Right.

SPEAKER_02 5:37

And that's usually on startups specifically. My thought is that most people who buy an existing business are more apt to succeed because they do have a mentor there to help them, or maybe they don't have the mentor, but they've had the experience in a business sometimes to help them. Right.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

If it's a successful business, if it was a if it has a good reputation and all of this kind of thing. So anyway.

SPEAKER_02 6:03

So I'm gonna segue into being a successful business has everything to do about communication within your team. Right. Right, nice. What do you think? Was that good?

SPEAKER_01 6:14

That's good, that's a good one. Yeah, right, right. And so we wanted to share a little tip that we used last week. Uh, Ellie and I have been talking about this for a while because uh I shared it with her. And once a month we have an all-staff meeting. Um because we're virtual, and so it is very important for us to get our little faces all on the screen and connect and talk with each other. And so sometimes those meetings have become long. Uh, with we go around the virtual room with, okay, what did you do this week? Tell us about your week, and we all go around, and then I'm it's my turn, and I'm like, my in brain fog because we have them in the afternoon. Yeah, yeah. And you know, you and I are staring at each other, and you're like, I don't know. I don't know what I did this week. I talked to Vonda 92 times. I know that. I don't know. Like, I can't think. Check back with me tomorrow morning at eight, right? But so I was reading on TikTok. You and the TikTok. Reading an article on TikTok. No, I follow this HR girl. I get a lot of fun, like hacks, tips, little things. And she's really good. She's really smart, and she talks about efficient meetings and strategies and communications. And she talks about starting your staff meetings, your weekly staff meetings, with something called highlight and help, instead of let's go around the room. What was your agenda? What did you do this week? And because sometimes when you go around the room and that ends up being like a complain, oh my gosh, well, I did this and I did that, and then I had to do, you know, and it just does it's just spirals, people. It does, and then it triggers somebody else going, oh well, I did that too. I forgot how miserable mine was. So we tried that.

SPEAKER_02 8:32

This we did, and it was so good, Lori. Yeah, I was just it it kind of threw me, right? Because it's like a half hour before that meeting started.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

You guys threw this in there. She's like, Laura, let's let's try this. Because we had talked about it the last couple of months and we just didn't really get it together because that's how we roll, right? And so Ellie just remembered, she's like, let's just do it, which is honestly the best way to roll it out, because I think we overthink things sometimes. You just don't need to plan it. And I think it worked out perfectly. So we just went around the room and said, What was the highlight of your week? So something positive, right? That's what the highlight is, but something great that happened. My opinion is if I can't look at my week and find gratitude in at least one thing in my job, honestly, I probably need to start getting my resume together or retiring. I mean, honestly, if I can't find one highlight.

SPEAKER_02 9:35

Yeah, gratitude, like you mentioned, but also it's like something you're proud of.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

Right. Something I feel good about, right? Something that we did as a team, maybe it was a team effort, you know. And I loved the web team was kind of all together on that. Like, wow, we were so ahead of the game with Mother's Day, or we were so ahead of the game with this. They all felt the same. And the thing that Cammy brought up yesterday in our director's meeting, which is the four of us, was the help. When people brought up what their help was, we were all way more focused in on, oh, what do they need?

SPEAKER_02 10:14

Yes, right, right. And how can we solve that together as a team?

SPEAKER_01 10:19

Like I was writing them down, you know, and there weren't many, honestly, at the moment. And and there will be months that there will be, right? There will be times that there will be more. But we were problem solving. We were trying to find solutions for those. And we actually did for some of them, and we're like, wow, as a team, which again makes everyone feel more included and more part of it, which we have a couple of part-time people that I think felt really included in that that normally wouldn't have been part of that conversation, and and it didn't hurt for them to be a part of that conversation. I think they even contributed that like well, absolutely, which you know, we tend to forget those things. I'm so bad about and and it's my own conviction because I stand up on a stage and preach all the time about being vulnerable with your team and making sure everyone feels included and you know, leading with vulnerability and modeling and showing them everything. And here we forget to share a lot of things. And so that was a really good example, I think. And it took a couple seconds to highlight and what what do you need help with?

SPEAKER_02 11:44

And and that was what was interesting because we've done other things like that before, and you and I have talked about it the peak and the pit and the rose and the thorn. But this to me, it specifically tells you what you need to be talking about. Right now, it's there's no gray area. It's what is a highlight? Clarity, right? It's that clarity and then help. You know, what what could you? Maybe it's just you that need help, or maybe you're looking at us as a team and a company, and you'd say, you know what, I'm hearing this from our members, or you know, this is what we could use internally, which was really great because it was not just me, me, me, right? What I need personal help with is what it ended up not being. It was like, you know, as the web team or with email marketing, you know, whatever the case was, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:36

It was overall. Right. And I can I could see this being really beneficial in a flower shop because you say you have a staff meeting and your whole team's there, and your a designer is sharing, I need help with whatever. Um, and the whole team hears that, right? But maybe there is a front-of-house person that's been there for six months, and maybe they're very timid. And part of them, though, their desire is to learn to be an assistant designer, but they've never spoken up. You know, I'm just saying scenarios, you just never know. And maybe hearing that they're starting to need help is gonna give them the courage to go. I'd like to try to help you. Like you just never know. You don't know, you don't know.

SPEAKER_02 13:31

So let me ask you, Lori, when I'm starting to do this in my business. I mean, with us, we're pretty open with each other, right? Right. So our all staff is is pretty open. Right. But now I'm going to start this at my flower shop, and I just have four people, let's say. I have a small staff, but I have some people who don't really want to talk, right? All they want to do is they want to come in and they want to do their work and then they want to get out of there. They're just not. I I'm trying to create a team, but I don't know whether I really have a team. And now I'm bringing people in and asking them to do a highlight and a help. And how am I gonna get them to talk?

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Well, you're gonna prepare them ahead of time. They're gonna know this is how our meetings are run.

SPEAKER_02 14:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

Right? You're not going to, like Ellie and I did, you're not gonna throw this at them last minute, right? Example is there are people on our team that there's no one here. Everyone on our team loves our team. There's nobody there, but there were a few that were like, you threw this at me last minute. Like we weren't prepared, you know, where we're all like we live in the last minute. Prepare them. Hey, we're gonna do something new at the next staff meeting next week. Super simple, be thinking this week, what's the what's your highlight? What's your help? And so the people that don't like to engage and were like, you know what, I just want my paycheck and go home, at least they have time to come up with something fake. It can even be, well, we got free pizza this week. And it can be, I don't need help with anything. Okay. And they may do that for six months in a row. That's their choice. You may always get that. Remember, well, you weren't there, but we were at Nexogen, and we had kind of the same conversation with an audience member that was asking me about an employee, and I was like, We can't change people. You can only change yourself and how you react to the person. And you can be the leader, you need to model the leader you wish you had.

SPEAKER_02 16:06

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 16:07

You need to model that for everybody else.

SPEAKER_02 16:12

Right. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

You know what I mean? So if I have that staff member here that's like just pay me my money, and we are all gonna have one of those, and that's fine. There's people all over the world like that that are always gonna go. My highlight is I got the free pizza. My help, I don't need any help. My help is I need more time off. Whatever. Okay, that's fine. Thank you for sharing. Move on. Okay, that's it. There you go. That's it. Don't allow their energy, right? To affect anybody because people are watching you, how you respond to them. Thank you for sharing. That's it. And then you're hoping that over time over time, you never know. But if you poke them and prod them and enable them, it's just gonna make you miserable. It's gonna make them more manipulative, and it's gonna make the rest of the team go uncomfortable. Right, right. So, you know, you can't change people, it's not your job. So that would be my advice.

SPEAKER_02 17:29

I think that's great advice. That's I just know that oh yeah, in every, no, not in every, in a lot of situations, you will have that. Yeah, and so I love that. Just move on, just thank them for contributing what they did and move on. And hopefully in time it'll change. But if it doesn't work well the first time, don't give up, right? It's gonna take a while for this to like sink in, but you're gonna continue to do it. Right. Consistency is key.

SPEAKER_01 17:59

And I would say that first time, if you know there's a high probability they're gonna come with no highlight, I would be watching that week and have a highlight in mind for them.

SPEAKER_03 18:14

Oh, there you go, Laura.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

If they're like, I don't know, I don't know. I thought all week I couldn't, I couldn't think of one. I'm like, do you mind if I share something? I did see you crack a smile on Wednesday when I ordered the fruit the pizza. Can we call that a highlight? Can we just agree that you liked the pizza? Like, I would sort of make it jovial.

SPEAKER_02 18:35

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's good.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

You know, keep it lighthearted. Again, I'm attempting to model who, if I was an employee who I would want up there, just keeping it calm and I'm not reacting in any way. The employee's not going to get a reaction from me.

unknown 18:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:55

Stay in control. Stay in control. Stay in control of it.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

It's okay. It's all right. She'll that employee will likely, if they have a good manager, a good leader that's modeling for them, they'll likely come around or they'll quit. Yeah. That's what's going to happen. Either way, it's going to be a win, actually. Exactly. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. They'll either become so uncomfortable and miserable because that's who they are. They're going to leave and they'll do that in every job, or they'll soften and they'll realize, you know what, these people aren't so bad.

SPEAKER_03 19:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

Yeah. I love that. So highlight and help. Highlight and help. Little tip. That's your little tip. And I think people should try it for their Mother's Day staff meeting.

SPEAKER_02 19:46

Well, even before I would say, hey, started. You have uh Easter coming up, which is just a pump. But there might be some things that you need to talk about before then. And then we have prom. Maybe we need to talk about prom because it's coming up. And then admin professionals week.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

Yeah. There's a lot coming for Mother's Day. I think you could also do it. We've talked a lot about the importance of having like those quick weekly check-ins, those five-minute check-ins. You could do that. You know, you could use this as a starting point. Our five-minute check-ins come in. Which what's been your highlight? What can I help you with?

SPEAKER_02 20:20

All right. We're good. Actually, really good for just that. Yeah. Just a five-minute check-in. Mm-hmm. Yep. Love it. Yep. Love it. That's all I got. That's all I got, Vonda. That's what we've got for the week. So it's short and sweet, and we will be back here next week with something else exciting.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

Thank you so much for listening to our podcast. We hope you enjoyed spending time with us because we enjoy spending time with you. If you did, make sure you hit that subscribe button or add the Business and Pleasure of Flowers to your Google morning routine or your flash briefing on Alexa. We look forward to seeing you next week.

SPEAKER_02 20:59

So please come back and join us and discover how a bit of knowledge and one small change in your mindset can take you to new levels in your life and business.