Effective Meetings: A Case Study

Today I'm going to share a consulting story with you.  One of the things I love best about my work is being able to experience the incredible variety of organizational cultures that I interact with.  Sharing some of these experiences is one of the things I particularly enjoy doing here on this blog.

So today I was facilitating a discussion about organizational improvement in an organization here in Seattle.  The company decided to do this work in the context of a regular staff meeting, so I was able to sit back and observe how people interact.  I've been to a lot of staff meetings in my life but this one was particularly impressive.  Here are some of the factors that stood out:

They had Rotating Leadership
One thing this company did is to rotate the responsibility for facilitating the meeting.  Each session, someone new comes up and runs the meeting with the support of the HR executive.  This has the effect of building up the facilitation skills of the workforce while it encourages everyone to share in the leadership of the team.

They Laughed Often
Another element of this team is that they used humor to bond the team together.  The facilitator was a funny guy to begin with (Think starting off your staff meeting with wisdom from Homer Simpson) and there was plenty of laughter and gentle self-deprecation in the meeting.

They all Chipped In Without Complaint
The team also demonstrated a habit of helping each other out as a matter of course.  For example, when the team convened there were large stacks of mailing materials on the tables.  As people sat down, they automatically began stuffing envelopes.  By the time the meeting was five minutes in, an incredible amount of "busy work" had been completed.  No one seemed to find this kind of work demeaning or bothersome.

They Planned for Gratitude
This one impressed the heck out of me.  Shortly after the meeting started, the facilitator invited everyone to express any thanks that they had.  Suddenly, team members began to speak up.  These are the kinds of comments I heard:

"I'd like to thank Joe for helping me by filling in while I was on vacation."

"I'd like to thank Maggie for pulling me out of the fire last week when my computer broke down - she helped me get my reports printed when I was stuck."

"I want to recognize Accounting for pulling all those customer reports for my group - it was a lot of work and they were very thorough."

Was this series of "thank you's" a special event?  No, this time takes time for gratitude at every staff meeting.  Saying "thanks" to members of the team is a routine part of how they operate.

They Reported Successes
During the meeting, there was special attention paid to successes.  "These three employees referred new clients" and "We sold all the tickets to the conference." for example.  Each success was met with appreciation and smiles.

They Kept it Brief
No one at this meeting provided a laundry list of what they were working on, listed status reports for the sake of status reports, or rambled.  The meeting was brief, on target, and lighthearted.  To keep the meeting relevant, individual teams (HR, Customer Service, etc) each met *after* the main meeting to talk about departmental issues.  The whole team meeting focused on what applied to the whole team.

To walk into the room with this team was to feel that you were in the midst of a group of people who genuinely respect and enjoy each other.  No team is perfect, and I don't doubt that there are sometimes challenges or hard moments, but the overall tone was one of positive action.

And I admit that I'm especially entranced by that idea of taking time each meeting to recognize and thank others.  What a powerful action!  What would your team be like if they took the time to say "thank you" on a regular basis like this? 

I hope you enjoyed this 'case study' into effective meetings.  If you have a response to this post or your own stories to tell, leave a comment below.