If you work in the public sector you know getting things done isn’t always easy. The lack of coordination among team members can be a real problem. Trying to organize a group of people, each with their own priorities, towards the same goal is a challenge. Staff meetings can be a great instrument to improve coordination, solve potential conflict and increase the engagement and motivation of your team members. In this blog, I share three ways you can use staff meetings to engage your team(s) towards achieving results.
Align everyone towards the same goals
An important part of a leader’s role is to coordinate efforts towards the same objective. A clear goal is essential for that purpose. You can start by defining, as a team your yearly and quarterly goals. What is it that you want to achieve and how will you measure your success (You can read more about it here).
Use your quarterly goals to guide your meetings and give them purpose. For complex goals break them into pieces and monitor the progress on those. It will feel more manageable.
With that clear, you can prepare the staff meeting where you do a group check-in on the progress of the quarterly goals that the team has already defined. I used to prepare a matrix where I had a box for each of my team members and I would have the most important things they were working on with a deadline and other tasks for the week (download the templates here).
In our staff meetings, we would do a brief overview of the things we were working on that week, report the progress made and identify any possible problems that would affect our objectives. Sometimes it was a matter of solving internal issues, others it meant coordinating with other agencies. This was the perfect opportunity to anticipate complications. (For more resources on how to plan and lead an effective meeting check this blog).
I like to have staff meetings once a week on Monday mornings so that we are all on the same page for the week. The meeting doesn’t need to be long but it needs to align the team and help everyone focus on the right direction. You can do it as frequently as required. Keep in mind that under the current circumstances it’s overwhelming to have virtual meetings all the time. Perhaps a better option is to do it fortnightly with an email check-in in between.
Create space for dissent and conflict resolution
When you work as a team two things are certain. First, you need each other’s inputs to achieve the team’s objectives. In other words, you have to coordinate and work together. While this is obvious, it doesn’t make it easy. The priorities of one team member, are not necessarily the same for another one. Second, there will be tensions and disagreements. That’s normal. The role of the team leader is to create space to solve these tensions as quickly as possible and coordinate efforts to keep making progress.
To discuss disagreements with another team member is never pleasant. However, the absence of discussion not only doesn’t solve the problem but exacerbates its consequences.
Staff meetings are a perfect opportunity to create that space. Because it’s the place where common goals are set and monitored, it’s easier to reduce conflict by focusing on the common objectives rather than on personal issues. Staff meetings also give everyone the chance to discuss openly potential tensions and solve them. From my experience, sometimes problems are discussed and solved in the meeting, and often they were solved before the meeting, so it didn’t have to come up when everyone was there. In either case, the meetings served their purpose.
In the public sector, we are always busy. It’s easy to get trapped in our own area’s priorities and lose sight of the bigger picture and how we are a piece of a bigger organization. I find that staff meetings are incredibly effective at breaking these silos. The fact that everyone knows about what other team members are working on also opens the possibility of more synergies and joint work.
Create strong connections among team members
People are at the core of the success of any organization. Your results will be as good as your team is. One of your main roles as a team leader is to coordinate and motivate talented individuals into achieving results as a group. That’s not an easy task, nor something you can do on your own. The dynamics of a team are unique and often spontaneous. What you can do to build stronger teams is to create opportunities for connection beyond the professional setting.
Successful organizations like Google excel at this. You can try starting staff meetings with informal conversations that allow your team members to know more about each other. I used to ask everyone what they did for the weekend and how things were going, for example. At Google, they started with a trip report from anyone that had gone somewhere on the weekend, at Yahoo they started by thanking someone from the team for something they did the previous week. Choose what works for you. If you are thinking this is not important, from experience, it completely changes the tone of the meeting. When you know someone from a personal perspective too, there are more opportunities for fruitful interaction and collaborative work.
Use certain dates as the perfect excuse to get to know your team better and for them to know each other more. My personal favorite is to celebrate birthdays together. I also liked to organize group activities around special dates like Christmas. When possible, having breakfast or lunch together also gives a space for interaction and socialization. Personal connections strengthen the team and the potential of what they can achieve together. Remember, it’s easier to work with someone you like and trust.
Download the templates here
Photo by krakenimages on Unsplash
