This Post Is Not About Rumors
January 13th, 2007I responded recently to a question in the forums from a manager who had been spending the first 5 minutes of every team meeting discussing the latest rumors with his team.
I was pretty surprised. But not about the rumors discussion (I didn’t recommend paying that much attention.)
Spending the first 5 minutes of your team meeting on anything other than CORE stuff is a terrible, tragic waste.
A simple way to “get” this is to ask yourself: of all the things on your meeting agenda - and if you don’t have an agenda, then on your “list” - which one is most likely to get done?
The first one.
Think of the start of each week’s team meeting as prime real estate. It’s yours. Don’t give it up. Make it serve you.
Or after a while, the rumors will be about you. And if you haven’t learned it yet: rumors about you are the ones no one will talk about.
Really - this post isn’t about rumors.
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January 13th, 2007 at 5:38 am
“FIRST?” - Billions of dollars were spent yearly jockeying for this position. First to market, first in consumers mind, first mover advantage, first shot, first in the world (champion). In ‘web’ sense, to be in first page, first ‘ten’ or first ‘hundred’ out of millions of listings.
What a shame and waste not to capitalize on it! If you take into account that people’s attention span is only about 5-10 minutes, you might as well call off that meeting.
With regards to rumours, I was fortunate that quite early in life, somebody drilled this into my mind - “if you have nothing good to say, SHUT up”
January 13th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Since it was my post, I do feel a need to explain why me and my team use this to be our first item on our team meeting agenda.
First, to tone down on ‘rumours’, we use the term ‘what are our people talking about in the hallway’ (or while smoking
There are several reasons for this:
• We find it a good start-up, we often have a good laugh (Does anyone of you start with the last set of target-reports? I would rather do this after about 20 minutes)
• Next item on the agenda are the four teams, 5 min each.
• I really question the statement that your first 5 minutes are the most important. Are you yourself most concentrated only the first 5 minutes of a meeting, presentation, movie or dinner in a restaurant ??!!
• I used to start with the some points of my own, and now I finish our meeting with this. Not that my points are unimportant, but most of the time half the points I prepared were already spoken about before the end of the meeting. (And it was too much ‘high D’ for me)
• If there is an elephant in the room, nothing else will get attention
• We are integrating two just acquired companies
• It helps us, a lot, to develop a interdependency between team managers in the chain of our process.
• It helps us to develop a culture of being responsible for your own team AND a bit of each others. For example: we discuss each other’s ranking of team members every 6 month.
• My team is (and I am) well informed about almost everything at first or second hand.
• For the DISC-adepts : I’m a high I, and two of my team managers have a lot of S.
• I like to start with what my people think is important. The things I think are important will get the attention they deserve during our meeting.
• I think it is one of Horstman’s laws: It’s ALL about people!
Smile!
Kaspar, from Holland
January 14th, 2007 at 9:37 pm
I’m with Kaspar on this one.
The biggest single killer of teams and organisations is the Rumour Mill.
Take it head on and kill it quickly, there will be no more rumours.
Ask people what is being spoken about, these are the things that people are worried about, and give them straight/honest answers.
People will stop talking about rumours and start asking the harder questions about the organisation and where it is going…….this will give you a better handle on what the people need to be fixed to be more effective…..
I hear you saying….this is what One on Ones are about…..yes correct…..but this is an important part of the regular Team Meeting, getting the team to interact and be open and honest.
We use this as the warmup to get everyones attention and get them participating in the meeting……then they are ready to get on with the business part of the meeting.
Again, It’s all about people…..
Guy, From Australia
January 15th, 2007 at 3:57 am
I’m with Kaspar as well. I’ve used the first 5 minute of my team meetings to cover news, rumors, and gossip and get everything out on the table. If the whole room is worrying about layoff rumors you’re unlikely to get them to pay attention to anything else until you throw it out there and address it. It also tends to be a warmup period as well. Sometimes I just update the team with a few items and move on to the main agenda. Ocassionally the rumors are so thick we spend the bulk of the meeting discussing them.