Design the most significant hour of the month for thriving: the team meeting.

Make your team meetings dynamic and inspiring!

My Design Story

When I was first hired as Chief Learning Officer, I led a critical thinking challenge with my teachers to discover the design of the most effective team meetings.

This ‘meeting design challenge’ was one of the best things I did at the start of my leadership journey. Side note, I did many things wrong, so I celebrate this one.

First of all, I modeled project-based teaching and learning in this critical thinking challenge. Secondly, I learned early on the design of effective meetings. And, while meeting formats evolved each year and I clarified along the way, some of the basic principles stayed the same. Finally, teacher engagement in team meetings went WAY UP!

Originally, my rationale for designing killer meetings was resource management. Let’s say my teachers’ professional time is worth on average $30/hr and I have 20 teachers gathered for a 60min meeting. That meeting time costs the school $10/minute. Each minute. While these numbers will vary in every context, I challenge you to think about that number. For many, it will be exponentially higher.

Time and energy are our most valuable assets.

Let’s use it wisely!

Even beyond resource management, the rationale includes culture-building. Most importantly, amidst challenging times, we want our time together to be effective: to inspire, connect, and establish a thriving school culture.

Most often, I would spend between 2-3 of on-task work preparing the agenda for my 80min meeting each month and that didn’t include research, reading, idea chasing, or errands for prep. It was worth the investment.

Get Clear on Purpose

What purposes do you have for your meetings?

My purposes were:

• professional development – learn and grow together around what matters most regarding our annual objectives.
• collaborate effectively – we need each other to solve problems together, gather feedback, stay inspired, and grow.
• set vision – ensure we were engaging in meaningful ways regarding our school manifesto, annual theme, and yearly objectives.

Notice what isn’t on this list: announcements, information sharing, or policy review.

One of my hidden goals for our 80min was to get everyone in the room talking and discussing more than I did. I dignified my teachers by asking powerful questions and letting them generate solutions.

Model the Way

Kouzes and Posner in their seminal work, Leadership Challenge – How to Make Extraordinary Things Happen in Organizations, begin with the practice Model the Way.

For example, if you want authentic interactions in your school, the team meeting is your opportunity to model being authentic. Or, if you want a culture of praise and encouragement, be the change you want to see. Likewise, if you want dynamic teaching and learning in your classrooms, this is your time to show up with that same energy, planning, and creativity.

“Exemplary leaders know that if they want to gain commitment and achieve the highest standards, they must be models of the behavior they expect of others.”

― James M. Kouzes, The Leadership Challenge: How to Make Extraordinary Things Happen in Organizations

You can design your meeting to inspire, encourage, and empower your team.

Coming Soon…

Upcoming, stay tuned for detailed ideas on how to structure your meetings and engage your team.

For more Learn Forward™ ideas on how to Unfold the Soul of Your Team, check out:

• Start with a Poem – “Poem of the Woodcarver”
• 4 posts on ‘Team Trust’ – Part 1
• Unique Social-Emotional Learning Activities for Teachers and Adult Teams