The Disadvantages of Work-Team Meetings

Few people want to attend countless meetings, but extra meetings make sense when they enable productivity. Work team meetings differ from larger group meetings because they allow participants to discuss specific topics, brainstorm solutions to problems and make critical project decisions in private. The project management strategy does have its disadvantages, though. Don’t schedule a work team meeting unless you have a team that is willing to contribute.

The key disadvantage to work team meetings is the amount of time it can take to schedule meetings focused specifically on team issues. Regular team meetings usually focus on company policies, procedures and tools. Calling an informal work team meeting may disrupt other work activities and prevent employees from getting the job completed. Sometimes, you can just as easily and efficiently handle a work team issue through email or other online methods. Additionally, scheduling a lot of meetings breaks people’s concentration on their actual work tasks.

When work teams meet regularly, patterns tend to emerge. Some people may do all the talking while others prefer to sit back. Vocal, loud team members may insist on making all the decisions. Small business leaders need to remember to engage the entire work team. This may include conducting online surveys and interviews. This way, everyone gets to express their opinions and each person’s voice is heard and not drowned out by the loudest, angriest or most persuasive argument.

Collaboration tends to work best when it occurs naturally and isn’t forced into a specific time slot or place. Creativity and innovation get stifled when managers limit group interaction to work team meetings. Establishing a work space conducive to sharing information, ideas and suggestions may make more sense for your business setting. Larger group meetings allow opportunities for employees to get direction, make decisions, get a status report and coordinate activities; that may be enough.

Although you need to resolve issues promptly, scheduling a work team meeting to discuss every single issue that comes up may be overkill. In fact, calling attention to minor problems may actually make things worse. Sometimes the team members need to accept their differences and focus on completing their own tasks. Only schedule work team meetings if you really need to build long-term relationships, develop skills, set team goals and objectives, solve process problems, give each other constructive feedback and evaluate results. Don’t allow meetings to dwell on petty bickering that doesn’t contribute to achieving the team’s goals and objectives.