Managerial Leadership Practices: The meetings as managerial tools

Speaker A This is a matrix that basically shows the type of meeting, the purpose and the participant. So it's a pictorial representation that basically says meetings and are the expectations. In order to sort of demonstrate this we would say okay to you folks, if you're managers are going to be managers, in order to set context, what you have to do is take a circumstance and we can use an example such as increase productivity by 10%. So the goal is for the organization to increase productivity by 10%. How would you go about setting that context for your staff? So what is it that we're trying to accomplish? How is it that I'm involved in it? So you that's the manager and what is the impact on you, the workers? So again you look at it from a three level point of view, my boss's issues and concerns or the organization's issues and concerns, how it impacts on me and my peers and how it impacts on you, the workers and the subordinate staff. So that's setting the context. So we want to increase productivity by 10%. What are some of the issues that could arise? We clarify those. It may mean we have to get everyone to work more. It may mean that we have to improve some systems. But what we do is we find out what are the issues and what are the opportunities in order to achieve that. The flip side of that would be if we wanted to reduce our budget by 10%, it's always nice to have the increase because that's a nice conversation. But settings context also says if in fact there are negatives out there where there's going to be impacts, it's good to have people, the staff want to know ahead of time, they want to know before it becomes a great find or a newspaper issue. So keep people informed. The whole idea about three level meeting and what we're not covering today and it's one of the key criteria about records organization also is the manager wants you to move the accountability. The three level or the manager of the manager has the accountability. But a three level meeting is where you have your manager manager speaking to your roles. So it's three levels. You have the worker, if you want to call it that, of the subordinate, the manager and the manager's manager. It's a three level meeting and this is one of the best forms of communication because now the worker or the support your subordinates hear the message from the overarching boss. So now it's not just something that I have dreamed of as a manager but it shows that there's a consistent and it applies to the overall overarching.

Speaker B Corporate.

Speaker A It is one of the key methods of communication within a records organization is to have these three level meetings and they can cascade down. It could be level 543-43-2321. The good news is it'll never be two one something else.

Speaker B This is one of those places where you will have three levels of leadership in the room. And it's critically important in timing of change, critically that this kind of context is set. And we spend a lot of time working individually with the managers who are involved with this and Nancy too, and understanding how important this is. And we speak of it as a particular meeting which we'll get to in a moment. But the point here is how critical this is and particularly in time of change, that the message is given over and over again from the manager and then from the manager's manager together in the room.

Speaker A So I look at it as a real simple model where you put you as a manager in the middle and you have an arrow up that says what are the issues and concerns my boss has and how does it affect my workers? So you're in the center, you're in the middle and it's really providing clarity and building trust. Everything from a requisite point of view has to either provide clarity or build trust. And this is one of the tools that definitely supports you as a manager, being successful and being respected from your workers. And managerial meetings. There are many meetings that manager can hold but the idea is that one.

Speaker B Has to have.

Speaker A One of the things that a meeting should not a worker and a manager. It should be a two way working relationship. It's not just a one way. So it would be nice to say, I say and you do type of thing. It's got to be a two way working relationship. So managerial meetings help with that. Two way working relationship. It's an information exchange, it's a team. In the end you still decide. The manager still decides. But you have to get information and you have to share information. So manage your own meetings and process in which you share information with your workers and substantiate what your beliefs are. What Requisite says is that it's not, and I think Jerry said this this morning also consensus. In the end it's great to get input, but in the end the manager decides. So it's not a matter of trying to reach consensus within a meeting. In the end the manager will take all that information and the manager will decide. And that also links up to who is accountable. Remember that your manager is accountable for the outputs of the staff. So manager will meet him. Just help the manager be more effective. They have more information to make those decisions on. They also have more information to decide on development of their staff, who needs training, who needs the is it a coaching opportunity? They all link together. They're all opportunities. The key also on that is the fact that it is a mandatory meeting. There should be an agenda. There has to be a reason for the meeting. There should be content and there should be outcomes, expected outcomes. Again, it's nice to have a social gathering, but that is not a meeting.

Speaker B That'S a social gathering.

Speaker A Different types of meetings, group meetings. That's more that you can call it brainstorming to some degree. There's nothing wrong with that. But again, it's in a controlled environment. So what we're trying to do there is we're trying to share ideas, share views. We're trying to gain information and knowledge. The next one is probably one of the more significant ones. When the employee walks into a manager office, the rest of the employee shouldn't say, Terry's done something wrong or Terry's going to be reprimanded because he's going to the boss's office. It should be a frequent thing that the employees can go to the boss's office. It should be a normal thing. Exchange of information. What we found is that one on one meetings, for new managers in particular, should be planned, because a lot of times as managers, new managers avoid the one on one conversation. So we're saying one on one is very informative to the manager. It's not just about task assignment in these one on ones. It's the manager's opportunity to get to know their staff. It's very important. You have to know what makes your people tick. You are the ones that assign them and work. You control the environment. You have what their wants and their desires are. They may have particular career aspirations. This is an opportunity for you to gain that. So these one on one meetings help you broaden your knowledge of your staff. They should not be considered to be performance meetings. There are other meetings that are performance, but they should not be considered performance meetings. And they're a regular exchange of information. And depending on the number of staff, it doesn't have to be once a week, but they don't have to be formal once a week, once a month, once a quarter, but they should be frequent enough for you to be able to keep in tune with your staff.

Speaker B You ram.