What should I have my team read in advance of our staff retreat?
October 1, 2021 11:38 AM Subscribe
I have recently become the manager of a team with a fairly significant history of disfunction and I am looking for ideas for short readings or videos that I can ask them to read/watch in advance of our day-long planning retreat later this month. One of the main challenges has been communication and information flow. Three weeks ago I started a 15-minute "daily huddle" meeting and the positive results are already palpable, but our overall cohesion is still a disaster. My directors are running meetings that are long and boring and without focus. I'd like to build on the daily huddle success and use part of the staff retreat to co-create a structure and rationale for how/when we meet and for what purpose. What specific resources can I share with them in advance to help frame this conversation?
Some additional background:
- I asked them to read this article and to watch the embedded video to inform the framework for our daily huddles. We are following all of the guidelines described exactly (except I asked them to ignore KPIs and metrics for now, in favor of focusing on daily priorities and stucks). Clicking through to his other articles provides some good food for thought about framework, but I'd love to change it up and provide a variety of resources.
- We are a team of thirteen professional staff in Residential Life and Conduct in the Office of Student Affairs at a small, liberal arts college.
- Some of the feedback about the above article related to it being "too corporate." Frankly, I don't really care if it feels too corporate if it helps us develop a structure, but resources that relate more directly to higher ed or student affairs would be nice.
Some additional background:
- I asked them to read this article and to watch the embedded video to inform the framework for our daily huddles. We are following all of the guidelines described exactly (except I asked them to ignore KPIs and metrics for now, in favor of focusing on daily priorities and stucks). Clicking through to his other articles provides some good food for thought about framework, but I'd love to change it up and provide a variety of resources.
- We are a team of thirteen professional staff in Residential Life and Conduct in the Office of Student Affairs at a small, liberal arts college.
- Some of the feedback about the above article related to it being "too corporate." Frankly, I don't really care if it feels too corporate if it helps us develop a structure, but resources that relate more directly to higher ed or student affairs would be nice.
The POP model for meetings is used in a lot of nonprofit and educational settings and may be helpful for your directors. POP stands for Purpose, Outcome, and Process, and the idea is that you want everyone to understand why (purpose) you're meeting, what you want to get out of it (outcome), and how you'll get there (process). When used well, I've found it can help improve meetings and make them more effective.
That website has a great trove of other resources about cultivating and leading effective teams, definitely not from a corporate perspective.
posted by lunasol at 12:23 PM on October 1, 2021 [4 favorites]
That website has a great trove of other resources about cultivating and leading effective teams, definitely not from a corporate perspective.
posted by lunasol at 12:23 PM on October 1, 2021 [4 favorites]
(Also, I know this wasn't what you asked for, but the "too corporate" feedback made me think it might be useful to do an exercise around team culture at the retreat. In a team I was on, we took about an hour to talk about what we saw as the important values of the team - not just abstract things, but literally, what value we thought the team brought to to the mission of the organization and its members, and how we could embody those values in our work. It was really productive and helped knit together a fairly disparate team.)
posted by lunasol at 1:00 PM on October 1, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by lunasol at 1:00 PM on October 1, 2021 [1 favorite]
So a dysfunctional team has to have a daily fifteen minute meeting in addition to windy meetings by other directors and have to go to a day long retreat and then have homework in advance?
Just want to be clear.
Frankly, I don't really care if it feels too corporate if it helps us develop a structure
That kind of feeling, communicated to employees, makes them feel like they should set themselves ready for a huge waste of time.
At a small liberal arts college?
KPIs in student affairs?
This sounds terribly misguided.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 1:58 PM on October 1, 2021 [11 favorites]
Just want to be clear.
Frankly, I don't really care if it feels too corporate if it helps us develop a structure
That kind of feeling, communicated to employees, makes them feel like they should set themselves ready for a huge waste of time.
At a small liberal arts college?
KPIs in student affairs?
This sounds terribly misguided.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 1:58 PM on October 1, 2021 [11 favorites]
Dig into the "too corporate" complaints. If you can find out what exactly various people mean by that and really listen to why that makes them uncomfortable, youre in a much better place to find materials and goals that will fit everyone's needs.
posted by augustimagination at 2:05 PM on October 1, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by augustimagination at 2:05 PM on October 1, 2021 [3 favorites]
I'm also curious if some of the feedback you're getting relates specifically to the fact the article is about "scaling up" a business. People may rightly feel that that's not an appropriate framing for your department's work in the context of the college. Are you actually scaling up in any big ways right now or in the future? If not, work on finding more relevant reading material. Specifically, there are a number of professional organizations in the realm of Student Affairs/Res Life. If you're familiar with those orgs, seek out their materials. If you're not, get familiar with them. A college doesn't function the same as a tech company.
posted by augustimagination at 2:08 PM on October 1, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by augustimagination at 2:08 PM on October 1, 2021 [3 favorites]
If you've got team trust, try some Agile Retrospectives to pay attention to the things the team did well but can also learn from and do better.
Google did studies into high-performing teams and came up with this notion of "psychological safety" and put out a blog series at Rework.
posted by k3ninho at 2:16 PM on October 1, 2021 [1 favorite]
Google did studies into high-performing teams and came up with this notion of "psychological safety" and put out a blog series at Rework.
posted by k3ninho at 2:16 PM on October 1, 2021 [1 favorite]
Can you elaborate on the types of meetings? I might have some resources but I feel like “generic meeting tips” are not going to help you. Are they update meeting, planning/project based, facilitation for peer support…?
I use POP for some meetings. I also have a 20-minute debrief meeting every 2 weeks with my program leaders which is really just about creating cohesion and I just facilitate that. (I POP analyzed it:)
Are these all directors? Because if the issue is just a few people, you may want to coach just those people in specific skills.
posted by warriorqueen at 2:29 PM on October 1, 2021
I use POP for some meetings. I also have a 20-minute debrief meeting every 2 weeks with my program leaders which is really just about creating cohesion and I just facilitate that. (I POP analyzed it:)
Are these all directors? Because if the issue is just a few people, you may want to coach just those people in specific skills.
posted by warriorqueen at 2:29 PM on October 1, 2021
From many years of running workshops in NGOs, I don't recommend assigning homework for the retreat unless you have already planned the retreat around the readings you might choose for homework. Even then, one should have no expectation of anyone reading those readings in advance. If you genuinely want everyone to read something, make reading it together part of the retreat itself. (This also affords the ability to discuss what you intend them to take from it: for example, whether you are saying Things Should Be Like This, or Let's Use This As A Springboard And Brainstorm A Better Way To Do Things.)
Would it help to think about this like a theory of change?
What is the specific problem you are trying to solve? "Communication and information flow" is a vague phrase I've heard both leadership and other staff use to refer to a wide variety of problems. Do you and the team agree what the problem is? If you think long, boring, unfocused meetings are the problem, but the team thinks something else is, then asking them to brainstorm and create a Better Meeting Structure will probably come across as a long, boring, unfocused meeting. Will the retreat provide the opportunity to surface, prioritize, and plan for what *shared* goals you, the directors, and other staff have?
What is the context around this problem? What root causes do you and/or the team think are contributing? You mention a long history of disfunction - have there been other attempts to "fix things" in the past? Are you and the team identifying strengths as well? It is deeply demotivating to have a new manager come in and only see disfunction, without looking for what IS working and building on that.
What could be done to address this problem? You feel like improving meetings could help - do your team agree that this should be the priority? What other possible changes might be helpful? You say that you think the huddles have been helpful - how have they been helpful to you? How do the team feel? Are you willing to try alternate approaches (that still do the helpful things you need) if the staff don't find your approach valuable or comfortable? (i.e., please do not ask a team to co-create something that you want to look like a framework you already have in mind. Asking for feedback one doesn't plan to use is one of the most common and most infuriating retreat sins.)
warriorqueen's point about the directors is quite germane: if you want to work with your directors to improve the quality of their meetings, that probably would be best done with them directly, and/or with them and their teams. What works for Director A and their staff, POP or otherwise, might not work for other teams. Consider that retreat sessions about "improving meeting quality" - when only three people in the room run meetings and the rest of the staff are the direct reports of those three people - are likely to be uncomfortable and unproductive.
How will you know if it's working? Metrics are not at all appropriate here, but what is the shared vision for what*good* function would be? How will you, the directors, the team, know if things are headed in the right direction? When do you plan to check back in to see if [the new meeting structure] is having the intended effect? How will you confirm (internal anonymous survey, another retreat, stopping by desks for 1:1 check-ins etc. - not just by whether you as the boss think things are going well)? What will you do if it isn't working?
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 6:20 PM on October 1, 2021 [5 favorites]
Would it help to think about this like a theory of change?
What is the specific problem you are trying to solve? "Communication and information flow" is a vague phrase I've heard both leadership and other staff use to refer to a wide variety of problems. Do you and the team agree what the problem is? If you think long, boring, unfocused meetings are the problem, but the team thinks something else is, then asking them to brainstorm and create a Better Meeting Structure will probably come across as a long, boring, unfocused meeting. Will the retreat provide the opportunity to surface, prioritize, and plan for what *shared* goals you, the directors, and other staff have?
What is the context around this problem? What root causes do you and/or the team think are contributing? You mention a long history of disfunction - have there been other attempts to "fix things" in the past? Are you and the team identifying strengths as well? It is deeply demotivating to have a new manager come in and only see disfunction, without looking for what IS working and building on that.
What could be done to address this problem? You feel like improving meetings could help - do your team agree that this should be the priority? What other possible changes might be helpful? You say that you think the huddles have been helpful - how have they been helpful to you? How do the team feel? Are you willing to try alternate approaches (that still do the helpful things you need) if the staff don't find your approach valuable or comfortable? (i.e., please do not ask a team to co-create something that you want to look like a framework you already have in mind. Asking for feedback one doesn't plan to use is one of the most common and most infuriating retreat sins.)
warriorqueen's point about the directors is quite germane: if you want to work with your directors to improve the quality of their meetings, that probably would be best done with them directly, and/or with them and their teams. What works for Director A and their staff, POP or otherwise, might not work for other teams. Consider that retreat sessions about "improving meeting quality" - when only three people in the room run meetings and the rest of the staff are the direct reports of those three people - are likely to be uncomfortable and unproductive.
How will you know if it's working? Metrics are not at all appropriate here, but what is the shared vision for what*good* function would be? How will you, the directors, the team, know if things are headed in the right direction? When do you plan to check back in to see if [the new meeting structure] is having the intended effect? How will you confirm (internal anonymous survey, another retreat, stopping by desks for 1:1 check-ins etc. - not just by whether you as the boss think things are going well)? What will you do if it isn't working?
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 6:20 PM on October 1, 2021 [5 favorites]
Aw, yeah, this sounds like a Classic Culture Mismatch (I feel like you really buried the lede mentioning that this is a SLAC at the end). Like, are your bosses former SLAC profs turned admin? In which case.... doesn't that tell you all you need to know about workplace culture and the language/tactics you should use?
My rec is Priya Parker's work, including book, Ted talk, etc. I feel like she straddles the big-idea-purpose-driven stuff that will appeal to your team with your interest in professionalization and efficiency really well.
posted by athirstforsalt at 1:24 AM on October 2, 2021 [3 favorites]
My rec is Priya Parker's work, including book, Ted talk, etc. I feel like she straddles the big-idea-purpose-driven stuff that will appeal to your team with your interest in professionalization and efficiency really well.
posted by athirstforsalt at 1:24 AM on October 2, 2021 [3 favorites]
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