Starting A Meeting With A Get To Know Me Question
15th March 2021.
Dear Leaders,
In the current state of work, working remotely and tackling meeting and video call fatigue, we have two options, keep going as is or change it.
Staying as is, is not really an option. If you were to poll your company or your team you will see quite quickly things aren't working.
Not everyone enjoys small talk, however, small talk is an important part of team building, a foundational level of company culture and a way to kick off work positively.
Younger staff can suggest they dislike small talk, however, hearing a senior member of the company open and recommend something builds connections and compassion towards the leader they have not connected with previously.
Over the past year, leaders letters were created with three themes in mind:
(1) improving personal and professional performance
(2) improving company culture
(3) ensuring work is more deliberate and the world of work is less broken.
I always enforce meeting agenda's, quick reminder of my rules:
(1) knowing the objective of the meeting,
(2) understand what success looks like at the end of the meeting,
(3) always take the notes and actions, centralise and share. I call it the DAN framework, what are the decisions, what are the actions and what were the notes you should share openly and to those in the meeting, those who could not attend and those who did not attend.
These are critical elements in the equation for successful meetings.
You may remember in leaders letter 20, I laid out ways to optimise your meetings.
Here is a free tip to add to team or departmental meetings.
This week, my recommended focus area is adding a new agenda item to team meetings. This means kicking off a meeting with ‘get to know me questions’, on the agenda, agree it is for this specific purpose, then a five-minute rapid-fire conversation around a connecting topic, trivial questions designed to connect colleagues together.
Some of the questions you can include:
If you had to select one cereal to eat every day for the rest of your life what would it be?
Ideal holiday / vacation?
Favourite pizza topping?
Coffee shop order of choice?
Favourite animal?
Your spirit animal?
Hidden talent?
One app you couldn't live with?
Favourite memory in the company?
You will find this will set the meeting off positively (remember Bob Iger's business lesson number 1), you will learn more about your colleagues and where there is a tie in you can bring into future meetings, the food discussed, remember and share the drinks suggested by your team and apps to download and use.
If you read any of the company culture books, including the stables, the five dysfunctions of a team, the culture code and Netflix's no rules rules, the key message is relationship building for many (outside of the US) cultures wins the internal business battle, not diving straight into business.
So don't be a bad HiPPO and create better and more connective meetings. Remember, to keep a mental note of the small and quirky and keep coming back to them and throw in a surprise, you will be surprised how far this goes.
Thanks, be well and have a great week.
So don't be a bad HiPPO and create better and more connective meetings. Soft skills ignorance is still a major flaw in managers.
Thanks and have a great start to your week,
Danny Denhard
PS I’ll be keynoting The Future Of Work on June 10th 2021 at 11.00. Register for free here