Recently I was seated next to Laura Van Galen, the dynamic head of Bleu Marketing, a full-service direct marketing firm based in San Francisco. She described to me a practice she uses with her senior team, the daily jump-start meeting.
Are all the parts working together?
Here’s how the jump-start meeting works: every morning each manager has three minutes to describe the top three things they will be working on that day. The meeting lasts no more than 15 minutes.
Here’s why it works: it provides group accountability, it helps sharpen everyone’s focus, and it improves everyone’s clarity about what the group as a whole is working toward.
The entire leadership group stays focused and productive, all pulling in the same direction. The investment in meeting time pays back handsomely in improved coordination among all the managers.
Are your meetings short, targeted, and productive?
That’s a great idea! Too many meetings drag on and on because people aren’t focused on the business at hand. I can see that having more frequent but shorter meetings would eliminate a lot of side chatter and drawn out discussions.
[...] Effective Time Management is crucial to the success of your business, and this topic is covered by Christine Simiriglia in Thirty Minute Time Management Miracle and Margaret Lukens in The Jump-Start Meeting. [...]
What a great idea. Productivity and accountability are things that have to be practiced every day for them to really become part of the fabric of the company.
[...] Are your meetings short, focused, and productive? Take a tip from Laura van Galen’s jump-start meeting. [...]
Yes, but would my church adopt the practice? (In my dreams . . . )
Jane, remind them of that good Christian, William Penn: “I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.”
Granted, some things need time to percolate, gestate, and emerge. Good process can take time. Assuming that’s NOT what the time is being given to, is there ever a good excuse for wasting one’s time?