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Ask most leaders to describe team building or team development and they will immediately talk of offsites or 'away-days', paintballing, high-ropes exercises and orienteering. All fantastic in their own rights, but forget them for a moment and consider this: used in the right way, the plain old team meeting is one of the most effective, easily-organised and least costly tools for team building and development.

I recently spoke to a sales manager preparing to go to a team meeting offsite, and he was not looking forward to it! When I asked him why he told me that whilst these meetings are always good fun, they have some serious failings:

• they are badly planned - team meetings appear to be called at random, with little notice, and there is never an agenda in advance
• they are always focused on the future - the whole meeting is spent looking forward towards long-term, high-level goals and the team never refers back to what was agreed last time or to consider the lessons that can be learned from what has happened since the last meeting
• there's no accountability in the team - my friend resented the work he was putting into his presentation on projected sales because he felt that, after the team meeting, he would never again be asked whether he had achieved it, where he had had success or indeed where he had failed.

I was interested - my experience of team meetings has often been quite different. When I ask the teams I work with what works well and what hinders them, some common complaints appear time and time again:

• team meetings are often postponed, or even cancelled, in favour of other priorities - giving the impression that the team meeting, and maybe even the team, is well down the leaders' priority list
• the whole team is rarely present, participants turn up late and often the first things people say on arrival is that they have to leave early! Mobile 'phones are left on and people regularly leave the room to take or make 'important' calls. All of these issues are symptomatic of a lack of interest in the meeting, probably due to a perceived lack of value in the meeting
• typical agendas - where they exist at all - consist of information-download from the team leader, followed by an update from each team member about what they are currently working on - team members often find this more of an exercise in proving that they are working rather than adding any value in helping them to achieve their goals
• there is often little attention given to communal problem-solving or ensuring individual activities continue to fit with the team's overall purpose - exercises that would add value, build mutual accountability and utilise team strengths to best advantage.

Team meetings don't have to be like this. Structure your team meetings well and you will see the difference in your team members' motivation and commitment through their attendance - always a good start! - and contribution to the team meeting. High performing teams employ some common practices for their team meetings:

1. Plan team meetings well in advance

   • Put your team meetings for the entire year in the diary now!
   • Agree under what circumstances dates will be changed, and otherwise stick to them
2. Agree some rules about attendance and participation

   • Define when it is acceptable not to attend, to be late or to delegate
   • Agree that mobile devices be switched off or silent
3. For each meeting, structure an agenda and send it out beforehand, giving team members ample time to prepare

   • Define a format to keep updates brief and relevant
   • If you want team members to present, be clear about the level of detail and duration
4. Keep meetings action focused - blue sky, high-level planning is all very well but what specifically is the team going to deliver between this meeting and the next one?

   • Make sure actions are clearly defined with appropriate owners and timeframes
   • Ensure it is clear how they fit with the team's overall purpose and goals
5. Use team meetings as a form of self-assessment for the team

   • Refer back to the actions from the previous team meeting and check whether everything that was agreed has been achieved
6. Make the team accountable for its collective performance

   • Publicly applaud the successes since last meeting
   • Where there have been disappointments, discuss them together and learn from them
   • Work together to generate ideas to ensure success next time
   • Treat successes and failures as belonging to the whole team, not to any one member
7. Ensure that every team meeting ends with a run-through of a documented set of actions, with owners, and make a review of previous actions a standing agenda point for future meetings.

I will leave you with a quote, the spirit of which I think many of us will recognise:

“[If] we are all in agreement on the decision . . . then I propose we postpone further discussion of this matter until our next meeting to give ourselves time to develop disagreement and perhaps gain some understanding of what the decision is all about.” - Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. (1875 - 1966), a US auto executive

Don't let this be you! It is still early enough in the year to make another resolution, so make a commitment to implement the 7 simple steps above, and keep it!

? Allagi Consulting 2007. All rights reserved.

Ann Greene is the founder of Allagi Consulting and a specialist in corporate team development. She blogs and produces a monthly newsletter offering strategies, tips and articles on developing high performing teams, and can be contacted at http://www.allagi.ie