nformation. The sixth step involves participation. Participation is extremely important in a meeting. It allows participants to give feedback on the matters being discussed. It allows participants to ask questions and share any personal information or experiences that relates to the topic. The seventh and final step is summarizing. When the meeting is coming to an end, it is important to highlight the issues discussed. It is also important to review the goals that were agreed upon and the course of action each participant is required to focus on to accomplish those goals. Conducting effective team meetings requires skills, which are sometimes difficult to attain. However, once the skills are acquired, the benefits to a manager and the organizations are twofold. These four steps illustrated above can assist in developing better prepared managers. The steps can also aid managers becoming better planners. Efficient planning is not only helpful in conducting effective team meetings, but effective in other aspects of a managers job performance. TECHNIQUES Work teams seem to be the latest fad in todays business environment. We have teams for quality improvement, teams for customer service, performance management teams, and the list goes on. Companies of every size are striving today to team up employees for increased productivity, better customer relations and simplified structure. They encourage them to focus on generating the desired results. In order to reach this goal, the key to effective teams is to know why and for what purpose the employees are called together. Once the teams goals are placed above individual goals, success can be achieved. The group is likely to take pride in its performance and become more goal-oriented and committed to the team. The acronym, PERFORM, summarize the behaviors that are necessary for a group to become a high performing team. There are seven characteristics of an effective team accordi...
