As I shared last month (see here), I’ve been working with Atlanta entrepreneurs and moderating an accountability group. The group meets once a month for a few hours. I’m aiming for the group to be highly engaged and open to sharing so they’ll learn from peers' experiences and can solve their own problems faster. My goal is to make each meeting a better experience for the entrepreneurs than the last.

We had our second meeting this week. The members rated the meeting highly (this is at the end of each agenda), but the meeting didn’t meet my expectations. “High engagement” means everyone is showing up, being prepared to share, and learning from their peers. During our first meeting, we had 100% attendance. I also had everyone go through their calendar month by month for the next six months. We found dates that worked for everyone and committed to those dates as a group. I sent meeting invites out for the next six months. Stuff happens, but as much as possible, I wanted to mitigate scheduling issues that would prevent a busy, type-A entrepreneur from attending.

This month, two members couldn’t make it. Another member was late. I’ve realized that I didn’t fully set expectations with the group. The expectation related to being late had been set (no admittance after the meeting starts), but I hadn’t crystallized what happens if someone misses a meeting (whether that’s planned or because of tardiness).

My thinking is that A players want to be around other A players. They get annoyed when they’re forced to work alongside less-than-A players and often remove themselves from such situations. I think everyone in this group is an A player, but this week, not everyone gave A-level effort. Three members missed. To maintain the high-engagement, high-effort culture required to make this group a success, I need everyone to give A-level effort every meeting. That means showing up on time and prepared.

Last month, everyone gave A-level effort. The challenge this month is that some members gave A-level effort and others didn’t. I’m pretty sure (though this is an assumption; no one said anything to me) that attendees who did give A-level effort noticed the difference. I need to address this and have the members who missed demonstrate to their peers that they can and will put forth A-level effort going forward.

I’m not 100% sure how I’ll do this, but I’m thinking about having each member who missed explain, in two minutes, why they want to continue being part of the group and what they’ll do to avoid missing future meetings. The members can then vote on whether that person can continue as a member (i.e., do we think this person will give A-level effort going forward?).

Regardless, the second meeting is in the books, and the members got value from it. I’m looking forward to tweaking this format to make the rest of the meetings better than the first two.