Preparing for the first team meeting

Preparing for the first team meeting

Preparing for the first team meeting

Coaches help team leaders step into a new role—entrepreneurial leadership. One defining attribute of successful entrepreneurs is their obsession with achieving their goals. They do what it takes, no matter the obstacles. In 30-Day Challenges, team leaders have this same obsession with the team’s 30-Day Goal. They also behave in ways—and create an environment—that inspire the team to collaborate, innovate, and implement.

The weekly team meetings are an important method to keep team members focused on the 30-Day Goal and the 30-Day Work Plan, and also to reinforce the culture of intense collaboration, rapid innovation, and disciplined implementation. 

Example of weekly team meeting agenda

Here’s an example of a typical agenda of weekly team meetings.

Welcome and check-in

  • Ask each team member to share a positive experience from the week prior.
  • Keep it fun and quick. One minute per person!
  • Change the “check-in” question at each team meeting. 

Progress on the Goal

  • Make sure the team has a way to track progress against the goal. And each week, review what progress has been made towards the goal. 
  • Share learnings, obstacles and help needed.

Update on the Work Plan

  • Review action steps in the plan, check off the ones completed, refine others or add new actions as needed.
  • Make updates on the work plan during the meeting, if possible.
  • Reflect on the team agreement.  Are we sticking to our commitments?

Next steps

  • Agree on the next steps and responsibilities
  • Make sure everyone is clear about actions, responsibilities and timelines.
In the first team meeting, you as a coach can take an active role in facilitating the meeting. After that, it is important to step back and give the Team Leader the space to practice the skills and techniques that you model. Your role during subsequent team meetings that you attend shifts to an observer, providing feedback to the Team Leader after the meeting. You can also help the Team Leader prepare for team meetings.

Reinforcing the culture of collaboration, innovation & implementation

Here are some of the things the team leader, with your support, can do to inspire intense collaboration, rapid innovation and disciplined implementation through the team meetings.

Inspiring Intense Collaboration

Collaboration is reinforced when people trust each other, and when they are committed to a shared goal. Here are ways to reinforce these in team meetings:

  1. Commitment to Shared Goal:
    • Start each meeting by reviewing progress against the 30-Day Goal, AND celebrating successes, however small these may seem.
    • Periodically ask the question: how are we feeling about our 30-Day Goal? Is it still exciting? Are we still determined to achieve it, in spite of its difficulty? 
  2. Relationships of trust
    • Use check-in questions that invite team members to reveal something about themselves to their teammates: Personal experience, proud family moment, embarrassing moment; etc. Showing vulnerability and being genuine with others strengthens relationships and builds trust.

Collaboration in Action: you can ask two or three team members to work together to solve a problem, and to update the rest of the team at the next meeting. 

Example: The policy development requires some research to see what other organisations have done, so as not to reinvent the wheel. The Team Leader can ask two team members to work together to do the research and present a summary at the next team meeting    

Inspiring Rapid Innovation

  • Encourage and celebrate bold moves and risk taking
  • If the team tries something that fails, celebrate that as well: “what did we learn from this?”, or “I am glad we failed now rather than investing a lot of time before finding out that this is not worth pursuing”
  • Encourage mentors to have a similar attitude

Innovation in Action: Challenge team members at the team meeting to come up with new ideas to get around an obstacle that has come up.

Example: We are not hearing from many staff members who may have grievances and complaints about sexual harassment, because they do not trust that they will not be fired if they speak up. What are some “extraordinary” things the team can do to reassure them? 

Inspiring Disciplined Implementation

  • Send a meeting reminder (or delegate this to someone) at least 2 days in advance in order to encourage and ensure attendance, and include any relevant information to encourage preparation and participation.
  • Keep meetings as short as possible to be productive and effective – one hour at most.
  • Remind team members, before team meetings, of commitments they had made in the work plan.

Implementation in Action: Encourage the team to move into action quickly, try things out and see if they work, versus arguing on whether some things will be effective or not, or deferring action “till we gather more information”.

Example: Some team members might prefer that they get 100% of staff to fill the Health Check survey, so “we know precisely where the problems are before we start taking action.” The Team Leader can remind them that it is OK to try things out, even if we are not 100% sure yet of how effective they will be. We can assess the impact and change course if need be, rather than wait till we have complete information.

Thought starter reflection questions

Jot down thoughts on these questions – to the extent they are relevant to your experience at the session:
  • When did the mood in the event shift from “why are we here?” to “this could be interesting – I am excited to be part of this.” What triggered this shift? 
  • When did you have to go “off script” on the agenda or to change the agenda? What triggered this? What did you adjust? How did it go?
  • What was most surprising to you at the event?
  • What new insights did you gain about the issue at hand, and about the way leaders in the system interacted with each other?
  • Where did the conversation get stuck? What got it unstuck?
  • How would you characterise the level of trust among participants in the meeting? To what extent did this shift as the meeting progressed? To what do you attribute this shift, if indeed it happened?

Thought starter...

Reflection Questions 

Jot down thoughts on these questions – to the extent they are relevant to your experience at the session:

  • When did the mood in the event shift from “why are we here?” to “this could be interesting – I am excited to be part of this.” What triggered this shift? 
  • When did you have to go “off script” on the agenda or to change the agenda? What triggered this? What did you adjust? How did it go?
  • What was most surprising to you at the event?
  • What new insights did you gain about the issue at hand, and about the way leaders in the system interacted with each other?
  • Where did the conversation get stuck? What got it unstuck?
These are 100-Day Challenge Mentors. 

They did some work before you received the Challenge Note. This included:

  • Writing the Challenge Note, and making sure that the leaders of all the organisations represented on the team are comfortable with it – and committed to supporting the work of the team
  • Helping the leaders of these organisation recruit you and your colleagues to the team
  • Gathering some baseline data and other information that will help you and your teammates set your 100-Day goal and develop your plan.
  • Making sure all the preparations are made for a successful Lift-Off workshop, when you and your teammates will meet and get your 100-Day Challenge started. This includes venue, facilitation support, food, swags, comms, travel arrangements and whatever else is needed.

 

Mentors will participate in all or part of the Lift-Off Workshop, mostly at the start to provide context and answer questions, and at the end to give you and your teammates feedback about the goal and plan you develop.

During the 100 days following the Lift-Off Workshop, here’s what the Mentors will do:  

  • They will check in every two weeks with the team leaders to see how the team is doing and what support they and the team need.
  • They will keep other organisational leaders informed and engaged during the 100 days, and pull them in to help as needed.
  • They will participate in the last part of the Refuelling Workshop, halfway through the 100 days, to see what additional support the team needs, and to begin to plan with the team for sustainability and scale-up.
  • They will work with the team at the Sustainability Workshop to finalise recommendations on sustaining the results and building on the work of the team.