Open the meeting with a round of check-ins

Start a team meeting by having each person say what is on their mind, how they feel, or what they are working on, before any agenda item.

Pourquoi ça marche

A secondary summary of the book describes Decurion meetings as beginning with a check-in, in which people sit in a circle and share what is on their mind, how they feel, or what they are working on. The source does not state a mechanism for why the round helps. The nearest account is the authors’ broader argument that people’s growth and their work are one pursuit, which makes personal state a legitimate thing to put on the table first.

Comment faire

1. At the start of your next team meeting, go around the table once.
2. Ask each person one question: what is on your mind, how are you feeling about your work, or what are you working on right now?
3. Keep each turn short, and let people pass if they want to.
4. Only then move to the agenda.

Données probantes

The Mind Tools summary, which is secondary, describes Decurion starting meetings with a check-in circle. The Harvard GSE summary of the authors’ 2014 article says that in the organizations studied, people surfaced their weaknesses in meetings, one-on-one sessions and daily work. Neither source reports an effect of the check-in itself. (anecdotal)

This describes one company’s practice, as summarized by a secondary source. Opening with personal sharing can feel exposing to people who are not used to it, and the sources do not say how to run the round when people decline to share.

Sources

• Mind Tools. An Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization [secondary summary of the book].
• Anderson, J. (2014, April 1). On Deliberately Developmental Organizations. Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Erreur fréquente

Letting the check-in turn into a progress update. The round the source describes is about what is on people’s minds and how they feel, and a status list drops that part.