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To be more
productive...
To build trust
relationships...
To communicate
effectively...
To build
supportive, joyful work teams...
Take
time to reflect together.
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Building Strong Work Teams(Part 2): Making
Time to Reflect Together
In
our last eJournal, we kicked off a series rooted in Catalytic
Listening, focused on building supportive, effective, and
joyful work teams. Read the
blog that kicked off this series here.
Practice #1 focused on how
to begin meetings that bring out the best in
people. In this week’s practice, we’ll focus on how to end
meetings.
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Watch any meeting at Creating the Future* and you’ll see that our final
agenda item is Reflection:
“What stood out for you during this meeting?”
Reflecting on what just happened is different from the fast-paced,
back-and-forth brainstorming or strategic thinking most common in
meetings. Reflecting is about taking a slow breath and assessing. What just happened, and what am
I feeling about that?
Teams become more effective and productive when they take time to
reflect together… |
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1) Routinely
reflecting together creates stronger communication and builds trust.
When we don’t know what others are thinking, we default to making
assumptions. If you’re smiling at the end of the meeting, I may assume
you agree with what just happened. In truth, you just got a text
inviting you to a romantic getaway, AND you are actually quite UNhappy
about what we talked about. And until things get ugly, I will never
know that.
2) Routinely
reflecting together replaces post-meeting grumbling with productive
discussion.
If you think your workplace doesn’t create time for talking about
feelings, guess again. That time unfortunately happens AFTER the
meeting, in the restrooms and hallways and parking lots - the gripe
sessions where we say what we are really feeling.
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“Why
didn’t we talk about X?”
“I feel really uncomfortable about how this was handled.”
“How am I supposed to handle this new project AND my existing workload?”
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Building
reflection time into a meeting bakes more effective communication right
into the meeting itself – where it belongs.
3) Routinely
reflecting together is not about starting from scratch; it is about
replacing existing rituals that are counterproductive.
If you have regular meetings, you already have rituals for your
meetings.
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-
“Any questions? Good! Now let’s get back to work” is
a ritual.
- Post-meeting gripe sessions are a ritual.
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This
is about replacing counterproductive rituals with rituals that will
bring out the best in your team members.
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Try this:
At
the end of your next staff / team meeting, set aside 5 minutes to ask
everyone around the table to quietly think about what happened during
the meeting. Here are some questions to try. (And as you come up with
different ones, please let us know what works for your team!).
- As you look
through any notes you took during this meeting, circle what stood out
to you. Share one of those thoughts.
- What words would
you use to summarize the group’s discussion? (And what are you feeling
about that discussion?)
- What did you
learn that you didn’t already know?
- What are you
feeling about what we discussed?
- Were all your
questions addressed? What are you feeling about the answers to those
questions?
- What was the best
part of this meeting?
- What would have
made this meeting more effective for you?
You’ll
notice that some of these are more “feeling-related”
than others. In some workplaces, those feelings questions
can work well. In others, they are 100% NOT acceptable (except the
"feelings" conversations that happen in the parking lot. See above...)
The
key is therefore to find the reflection questions that will work in
your environment.
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Giving
people time to reflect out loud together is one more way of building a
productive team, bringing out the best in yourself and those around
you. That is why it is part of the Catalytic
Thinking framework.
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* You can watch
recordings of all Creating the Future’s strategy meetings, planning
meetings and board / community meetings
at our blog here.
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Inviting
You to a Free Learning Community!
Want
to learn alongside other people who are trying out these
practices? Join
us at the Catalytic
Thinking in Action community on Facebook -
a welcoming place where you can ask questions and learn from people
like you who are experimenting with these practices. We look forward to
seeing you there!
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Keeping Our
Programs Freely Available
Most of the
programs at Creating the Future are free or low cost, with liberal
tuition assistance when they aren’t.
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If you find our
programs of benefit, we hope you will consider
contributing, to help
keep these programs available to as many
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Creating
the
Future
is a
collection of
people around
the world,
supporting
each other in
a grand
experiment.
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The
experiment:
To
determine how
much better
the world
could be if
the questions
we ask in our
day to day
lives are
bringing out
the best in
each other.
If
everyone,
everywhere, is
bringing out
the best in
every person
they encounter
– and if the
systems that
guide our
behaviors are
built to bring
out the best
in all of us -
how much
closer will we
all be to a
healthy,
humane world
that works for
all of us?
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SUBSCRIBE
to
get this e-Journal
Creating
the Future
3849
E
Broadway Blvd #238
Tucson,
Arizona 85716 USA
Creating the
Future is a 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization in the U.S.A
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