Make the most of Monday morning meetings (or don’t have them)

Ah, Mondays. The first day back after a lovely weekend. You pour yourself some coffee and say a few good mornings around the office before getting settled in at your desk to check emails and look over the work you have for the day.

For most offices, a Slack message invites everyone to gather for a Monday standup. The team sits in a circle to discuss work to be done and things to focus on and chat about what everyone did last weekend.

Sometimes, these meetings are valuable and productive. Most of the time, they only bring the team together to talk. Is it essential to hold Monday meetings? Do they help teams perform better? Does anyone like them?

This blog will discuss good Monday meetings and how to maximize your employees’ time.

Does this meeting need to happen?

About half of all meetings are a waste of time, usually because there’s no clear goal. Don’t do it if your only reason for interrupting someone’s flow state is to plop them in a conference room. There are, however, valid reasons to casually meet together.

Start by writing an agenda that outlines the meeting’s purpose. Send an email if the agenda consists mainly of unimportant reminders or policy warnings. Employees can be absent for this information; a hard copy is easier to keep track of.

Your Monday morning meeting agenda could include items like:

• Metrics and performance review. Share relevant KPIs and discuss how the team is tracking towards its goals.
• Upcoming deadlines and priorities. For teams working on a deadline, now is the time to confirm dates and come together on tasks that need special attention. Also, talk about the status of ongoing projects so everyone knows about any changes.
• Goals and objectives. Let each employee confirm their plans of what they’ll work on throughout the upcoming week. Everyone should understand their individual and team responsibilities if it’s a group project.
• Training and development. Some managers use Monday mornings to gain insights into working more effectively and building a career. Questions that arise during the meeting can be a reasonable basis for sharing knowledge and building skill capacity.
• Questions and feedback. Teams should feel comfortable asking questions and sharing concerns. There should also be an opportunity to provide feedback on past projects or how current projects are being handled. All of this helps foster a culture of communication, which is the most significant benefit of these meetings.

Sticking to an agenda stops your weekly team meeting from straying too far into the weeds.

If it’s important, tell them

The weekly huddle is a staple of modern businesses. Many business owners set aside a day of the week for meetings out of habit, which is fine, but they sometimes leave vital information to be communicated through tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams.

This seems wrong. If there’s something your team needs to know—something vital to their job function or a current project—informing them via email or chat is a bad idea.

“Per my last email” is a proverb because most people receive far too many pointless emails to discern between what’s essential and one more thank you in a Reply All chain.

If there’s something your team must know, don’t leave it to email or chat alone. Tell them in person. If it coincides with your Monday morning meeting, great—but if not, schedule another meeting or make the rounds as needed. Employees need multiple opportunities to hear important information.

Remote vs. in-person

Monday mornings differ depending on your company’s work arrangement. It’s much harder to justify mandatory huddles for remote teams who work alone than for in-person teams to kick off the week with friendly banter.

Let’s start with in-person teams: For a simple catch-up, Monday mornings are one of the best days to get everyone together and casually discuss work. It’s not inconvenient because people are just getting started and have yet to dig too far into a project.

Remote teams are different. Unless there’s a meeting on their calendar, they may need to prepare for it or plan to use their time that way. Regularly scheduled meetings may work one Monday but not the following week.

Managers of remote teams should ask when their employees have time and schedule accordingly. You could even send meeting invites through a scheduling tool like Youcanbookme, so everyone is on the same page. Slack and Teams also offer APIs for calendar tools if that’s more convenient.

Meetings for ongoing projects

Companies that provide services over an extended period (such as an agency or software development firm) may need to meet sporadically during the project. Monday mornings may be the worst time for these meetings.

What will people talk about? All their issues and concerns throughout the week are forgotten by Monday morning (unless they keep a running list). Rather than meeting at the start of the week, consider moving to Wednesday or Thursday after your team has a chance to gain momentum and dig deeper into what they need help with.

Using meetings to fix things

There are philosophies about using meetings to improve team cooperation and performance. One voice in this space is Lynn Taylor, whose book How to Tame Your Terrible Office Tyrant provides insights about making meetings safe and productive for everyone.

Not all teams get along. If this is the case at your company, Monday meetings can invite input and collaboration so troubled teams can practice working together.

Bad attitudes can be addressed in team settings (if meeting privately doesn’t work first). If someone shares an unsavory opinion or is rude, a little silence and calm can keep fires to a minimum while offering ways to improve.

“Does everyone else agree with that?” is a great question to start discussions about inflammatory attitudes. Taylor writes, “It’s incumbent upon employees to set limits to bad behavior and reinforce the good.” Meetings are a great place to enforce these limits.

Can it get awkward? Yes, but the good news is that challenging team members—what Taylor calls terrible office tyrants, or “TOTs”—already make things uncomfortable. The only thing better than avoiding conflict is taking steps right then and there to prevent it from continuing.

Meetings can be great for getting together and reinforcing good behavior.

Keeping the floor open

It’s normal for awkward silences to happen during meetings, but good leaders know not to interrupt. Somebody almost always has something to share, and they’re less likely to speak if doing so interrupts someone else.

Not all questions are easy to answer. Some take time to consider, meaning the awkward silence may be a moment of thought. This is good and shouldn’t be interrupted, even if it’ll help people breathe easier.

Ask for opinions and be willing to let silence happen as brains tick.

Wrapping up when the time comes

Meetings could be more fun. They take time out of the workday, require participation, and tend to lack structure. This is okay as long as the meetings serve a purpose, but if that runs out, it’s time to break and get everyone back to their desks.

Earlier, I mentioned allowing for awkward silences. However, there comes a time when too much indicates that time is better spent elsewhere. People who aren’t talking are mentally checked out.

Virtually no one minds when meetings end early. You’re not doing employees a disservice by giving them back their time and letting them resume whatever they were working on before.

If it helps, have an exit line. An old boss of mine would always say he was cooking spinach and could smell it burning (it was a remote job). While it was ridiculous and untrue, he used it consistently and made it easy to recognize.

Only continue meetings if they have reached their scheduled end time. It’s unnecessary and annoying.

Meetings should be important

Honor your employees’ time. Hold meetings when you have something important to share or need people to check-in. Create space for dialogue as required. Invite people to share their thoughts and personalities.

You may find that your younger employees see meetings differently, and that’s good. The possibility that a job today could be gone tomorrow contributes to a culture where people value workplace relationships more than maintaining optics for managers. Yes, work is still the top priority, but socializing happens outside meetings more often.

Monday morning meetings can adapt to these trends by sticking to an agenda and letting casual conversations happen independently. Keep meetings for the important stuff, and you’ll have happier teams.

Additional resources – Opens in new tab:
How to run better meetings and stop wasting time
Virtual meeting problems & how to solve them
Meetings are bad—should we cancel them all?