- October 11, 2011
- Culture of Collaboration, Leadership, Team Building
In my last blog post “Are Your Executive Teams Looking Up for Answers?” I talked about the importance of the Communication component in the Team Alignment process and suggested you make it a priority to schedule in advance a team meeting each week for the next four weeks. Hopefully you have had your first meeting by now and had each team member:
• Introduce themselves.
• The way they see their function.
• How their function relates to the function of each person at the table.
Did you find:
• That what people said about their function, is actually how others see it? Obviously, if there are differences, this is an opportunity to establish more clarity.
• Ask for ideas on how each person’s functional area relates to the others now, and how that could be improved cross functionally to get better results?
Please share with me your first meeting experience and any challenges and successes you faced.
The Second Meeting is critical in establishing a system of consistent follow up and accountability. It should occur one week after the first and:
• Discuss any questions or issues that may have come up in the intervening week.
• Take a few minutes for each person to discuss current projects or challenges they are dealing with.
• Create agreements from each person to move forward or complete their projects.
• Set up partnerships within the group so each person is accountable to one other person for agreements.
• Discuss with partner the implementation details, and take time to set up check-in calls during the week, for 15 minutes.
• Close meeting.
Be sure to check back soon for my next two blog posts on the elements of the Third and Fourth Meetings. If you are a leader of a team or a member of a team and want to learn even more practical tools that will enhance your team collaboration and communication, contact me today.
