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Hey Guys -

Thanks for the great work.

I was going back to review the one-on-one podcasts and picked up on something that I have a question about. Mark mentions in the cast that Monday meetings are almost always a bad idea (and that follow-up shows will go into more detail).

I may have missed it when you addressed it in subsequent shows, but I'm curious about why Monday meetings are a bad idea and your experience with them. I agree that they're not ideal for one-on-ones, but for other meetings they seem to work to get the week kicked-off well (ie: team meetings, staff meetings, etc). I have entire projects that meet regularly on Monday which seems to help folks to focus and hit the ground running.

As always - I appreciate your thoughts and the time you take for this.

Many thanks,

Caleb

Mark's picture
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Caleb-

Thanks for your kind remarks. Glad you like our work.

You didn't miss it... we just have LOTS of shows to cover!

The answer is, meetings slow things down. It is very easy to slow things down, but much, much harder to speed things up. If you start the week with a meeting, you're starting slow. (This is from DRUCKER, by the way.) Team and staff meetings slow things down.

What's more, meetings are places where work is reported on, not where tasks to do are agreed upon, in general. So planning out the work week ought not to be terribly necessary... better to assume this week that folks will know what to do and have a "progress report" meeting on Thursday afternoon. This assumes that responsibilities are fixed... but heaven forbid you're reassigning responsibilities every week!

Let me know if this answers your question,

Mark

calebbrenneman's picture

Mark -

Thanks for the insight. It makes sense that meetings tend to slow things down and that it's hard to ramp things back up again.

I'm going take your suggestion and try doing a Thursday afternoon progress meeting and note the changes. I'll let you know how it goes!

Thanks again,

Caleb

tokyotony's picture

I myself was wondering about what Mark & Mike views are on having Monday meetings.

Until a couple of months ago, I was having a weekly team meeting on Monday afternoons and felt that the energy was just not there to go through the meeting. I also felt it was a chore to have the meetings on Mondays since it was kind of my day to get everything jump started for the week. I ended up changing the meetings to Tuesday afternoons.

bradleymewes's picture

Darn it! I just implemented One on One's today for the first time. I had a great response, now I find out I may have to change all of that up.

Anyone have any advice? My gut tells me go a few weeks on Monday and then move them to Wednesday or Thursday. The only problem is that Monday was my one free and clear day. By the time Thursday comes around there is so much dust kicked up from the work week everyone seems to be running around frazzled with no time to spare for a 30 minute meetng.

Brad

juliahhavener's picture
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Brad,

I think you're fine to keep your O3s on Monday if it works well for you, but I would seriously consider shifting them to another day as they may not be as convenient for your directs.

The issue comes in on that dreaded "Monday morning meeting". Some people use Mondays for their balance point. For me, I'm looking over what happened during the weekend (the business is 24/7 even if my team is not), catching up on email so I start the week with a clean slate, and handling the little things left over from Friday afternoon after I left the office. I start in on O3s and other management tasks on Tuesdays.

I wouldn't have a team meeting on a Monday for all the reasons already discussed.

quenfis's picture

I dread Monday morning meetings. My corporate transportation manager insists on having Monday meetings. Most of the people are CST or EST, I am in PST and the meetings fall between 11:30am-12:30pm (lunch time). I have made some mentions about the time, and that Monday's are a slow start for the week to have a productive meeting. So far, there are no plans to change the meetings...yet I can hear the tone in everyones voices when the meeting is going. The manager does most of the talking. So it's easy to lose focus on what is being said.

At times I find myself making notes on why I should not be part of the meeting, so I can eventually make my case to move out of them permanently. In the meantime, I just grumble and sit through it. Not a fun time.

bradleymewes's picture

I can understand your pain. I think we have all been in those meetings we dread and can only think of 10 reasons why we shouldn't be there. I have received a good tone so far on the meetings I had so I am going to wait and see. Maybe after a few weeks I'll suggest a change and see the reaction.

Brad

aspiringceo's picture

Hi Brad,

another argument for not having them on a Monday is public/bank holidays. Here in Scotland we have 12 public holidays and most of them are on Mondays.

Edmund

quenfis's picture

Brad, don't forget Mark's advice on looking three weeks out on your calendar. You may not be able to move any meetings this week, or next week. But, chances are your third week out is free. Mark has also referenced Drucker, saying that it's easy to slow people down, it's difficult to speed them up (or something of that nature) when talking about Monday meetings. Watch the feedback, and encourage it in the O3's. You may want to try and move one to a Wednesday and see if shows a more productive meeting. You may be suprised at the energy you get in the O3 on Wednesday versus Monday.