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Hi,

I have read many articles about the weekly meeting purposes but so far i didnt find what i'm looking for.

Actually i'm managing infrastructure section in IT department and my team are technical support, system eng, network eng. And i'm having one-on-ones meeting with them, so do you think i should have Bi weekly team meeting and if so what we have discussed.

I mean do we have to discuss the update for each one or only talk about the common tasks between the team?

Thank You

 

mattpalmer's picture

The reason why we have weekly O3s with each of our directs is to build a relationship between the two of us.  The weekly staff meeting serves a similar purpose -- to let the team build internal relationships, so they can work better.

That being said, I've tried weekly staff meetings, in the Manager Tools style, a couple of times with different teams, and I've never been satisfied with what they've accomplished.  Perhaps it's just my lack of experience running them, but they very quickly devolve into lifeless recitations of tasks completed, no questions are asked, and everyone quietly files out of the room at the end.  The whole thing feels grey and lifeless, and they just die out.

I've just recently thought of a slightly different way of phrasing the questions that each person needs to answer, and I'm rather keen to see how they work with the next team I run:

  • What am I proud of having done?
  • What do I wish nobody ever found out what I've done?
  • What don't I know that I wish I did?

Essentially, I'm asking people to share their successes, failures, and ask questions.

Perhaps you could give it a go first, and let me know if I should try it!

 

mrreliable's picture

One of the one-on-one podcasts discussed the importance of once a week for the meetings. A point that seemed to make a lot of sense is that people tend to live their lives in three- to five-day windows. Meeting once a week helps run a thread through all those windows.

The podcasts also talked a lot about fighting through the awkwardness. The trick is to get the direct talking about things they want to talk about without the manager steering the conversation in any way.

I like the idea of asking "What am I proud of," etc. I found myself chuckling at the "What I don't know that I wish I did." I have a direct who gave me a great presentation once about how a person's world of knowledge is split up into categories, three I believe. "What you know you know," "What you know you don't know," and "What you don't know you don't know," complete with pie charts and graphs. These are some strange but oddly interesting discussions.

The direct's time spent talking about whatever they want to talk about reminds me of an excercise we present to new writers we're evaluating for possible employment. We have an exercise we call the "Write Something" assignment (my thought in creating it was, 'you say you're a writer...write something'). The only instructions we give are you have two hours and there are absolutely no expectations of subject or scope, and your best advice is to have fun with it. "Go."

It's like a verbal Rorshach test. We obviously find out whether they can write, but also time management, work under pressure, how they respond to a blank canvas. I spring this on the directs periodically for a change of pace, and everyone enjoys reading whatever comes out of their co-workers' heads. I think hitting someone with "What I'm proud of" is a similar vein.

Anyway, if the directs don't seem to be opening up, I'd suggest perhaps gently prodding them a bit, explaining why you're doing the meetings, and asking them if they have any advice on how to make them more productive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

gpeden's picture

 I had a similar experience with weekly staffing meetings becoming dry and boring - with the exception of the 'special topic' presentations.  In the beginning I gave most of the special topics - usually focusing on strategy, process improvements, etc.   This was ok - but I didn't want the meetings to be about 'me' and the communication was very one-way.

When we started the Coaching phase of the Trinity I noticed a trend from O3s that many of my directs wanted to or needed to improve their presentation skills - and they all had topics and experiences that they were passionate about that the rest the group didn't know about.  From technical how-to's to customer management to project spotlights.

So we started having team members give the special topic of their choice each week, and I would take coaching notes on how they did (there is a cast for that).  This completed changed the meeting - we look forward to the meeting each week, we had a waiting list of team members and topics, and in many cases the staff meeting presentations were given to the wider company.

Thanks,

George

DiSC 7511

gpeden's picture

 I had a similar experience with weekly staffing meetings becoming dry and boring - with the exception of the 'special topic' presentations.  In the beginning I gave most of the special topics - usually focusing on strategy, process improvements, etc.   This was ok - but I didn't want the meetings to be about 'me' and the communication was very one-way.

When we started the Coaching phase of the Trinity I noticed a trend from O3s that many of my directs wanted to or needed to improve their presentation skills - and they all had topics and experiences that they were passionate about that the rest the group didn't know about.  From technical how-to's to customer management to project spotlights.

So we started having team members give the special topic of their choice each week, and I would take coaching notes on how they did (there is a cast for that).  This completely changed the meeting - we look forward to the meeting each week, we had a waiting list of team members and topics, and in many cases the staff meeting presentations were given to the wider company.

Thanks,

George

DiSC 7511