The Magic Meeting
For a team to win, everyone has to buy in, weigh in and then move forward on a shared vision. Over the past three decades, I’ve used a winning formula to supercharge collaboration in all my team meetings. Here’s how to use this same strategy to build a phenomenally successful organization.
People need to feel heard
People need to feel a sense of meaning and movement with their proposals. If you just talk at or over people, relationships are damaged and trust is broken. If people feel heard, however, they’re far more likely to come together and get on board with a shared vision.
Before a team meeting, give everyone enough time to think and prepare. Circulate a detailed agenda of items to discuss and ask the team to think about what’s working, what needs improvement and what ideas can be proposed.
When the meeting is underway, capture all of these thoughts, ideas and problems on paper. A giant flip chart is perfect for this purpose as pages can be torn off and attached to the wall, making everything visible for attendees.
During the meeting, welcome and write down all feedback without commentary. Once the team has affirmed what’s working well, identify the challenges to be addressed and gather ideas for how to improve in those areas.
People need to see you take an action on their ideas
If you want people to buy in, it’s critical they see that you’re going to act on their ideas.
First, implement the low hanging fruit. Some ideas are going to be major and more long-term. Others will be simple, quick and inexpensive to act on right away. Moving forward on these ideas immediately will help you reach your objectives and galvanize everyone, too. People love to come to work and be on a team where they see progress being made.
Second, prioritize your action steps. It’s vital to identify what’smost crucial to the well-being and successful operation of the organization and then break those down into subparts.
Third, remember you don’t need it all. Not every item will be actioned immediately. Some will be now, some will be soon and others will be later – and that’s fine. What you’re really trying to do is encourage a synergistic process of co-creating.
Whether it’s a small business, a giant publicly-traded company or the board of a non-profit, the magic meeting always works wonders! To learn more, listen to the latest episode of “It’s a Good Life”.
