Moving from Individuals Sharing Information to Being a Team

Chris is a senior leader within the technology department of his organization and he determined that the weekly meetings he held with his team never changed and didn’t create enough value for the business.  All those who attended the meeting would prepare by putting together a lot of information that would be presented each week.  People were bored and didn’t really listen because what they were hearing had nothing to do with what they were doing in their jobs.  Energy was low and Chris decided he would try to make some changes.

 

Chris asked all of his team members to type up any information they were going to share at the meeting so people could review ahead of time and come with any questions or items about the document that they wanted to discuss.  The team would spend the majority of the meeting on a couple of key issues that everyone can influence or was vital enough that it was worth getting the thoughts of everyone on the team.  This allowed the team to become more of a team rather than a set of individuals who met every so often to share information with each other.

 

Chris discovered that the pre-meeting document that was being created was 80 pages long.  People were not spending the time reviewing the document.  During one of the meetings he led a discussion in which team members determined together what information was worth sharing with each other.  They created some guidelines and after a couple more iterations the document went from 80 pages down to 8 pages.  The shortened document of information based on information other team members asked for meant people were reading the document and coming with good questions and better items for discussion.  The team got used to seeking each other’s help on key issues instead of feeling like they couldn't ask the others for help.  Team members started walking away energized and feeling like the business was better off because the meeting was held.