What You'll Discover In This Episode:
It doesn’t matter what’s on our agenda.
I don’t care if we’re in the middle of a major launch or brainstorming better ways to serve my clients.
Whenever I hold a meeting with my team members, I start it the exact same way by asking one very important question. I ask them point blank, ‘Do you need anything from me?’
Now, you may be thinking that sounds kinda weird. I am the boss, after all, so you’d think I’d be telling them what I need from them.
I definitely do but only after I ask, ‘Do you need anything from me?’
That’s because I learned a long time ago that if I consistently answer my team members’ questions and address their needs at our regularly scheduled meetings, they won’t bombard me with questions and concerns throughout the week which show up as productivity-killing interruptions. I also won’t be the bottleneck preventing them from moving forward with the work I asked them to do because they’re waiting on me for an answer.
When team members don’t know when they will have your attention to ask you a question, they will grab any chance they get which can be super inconvenient for you. Schedule regular meetings with anyone on your team that directly reports to you and routinely ask them what they need from you. You’ll soon find out how having that consistency in their schedule will help reduce interruptions to only urgent matters.
That’s just one of the effective strategies I dive into in this week’s episode of Productivity Straight Talk to help you minimize team member interruptions so they don’t hijack your day and you can power through your work without constantly being disturbed. Tune in to find out the other six!