14 Questions to Make your Team Meeting More Meaningful
Turn the facts dump into a learning opportunity for you and your team
Do you remember your last team meeting?
You sit there and people take turns to report about their challenges, achievements and ongoing work. The format is monotonous. Facts density is high. Very little gets done. A lot of stuff is less relevant to your own work. You feel disconnected and your mind starts wandering. Colleagues start doing other things and tune out. You concentrate only for your own reporting.
I wrote my grocery shopping list in the team meeting for years and I always picked a seat with a good view out the window.
What was missing for me?
Time to reflect to identify synergies and learn. Human connection.
How do you make team meetings more meaningful?
There is no ‘one size fits all’ so here is a collection of questions and prompts to consider:
Easy to start with
Share 3 things about your work that are most relevant to your team members?
Share a highlight and a low point in your job or life from this past week.
Growth
Share something you learned in the last week.
If you could go back in time one week, what advice would you give yourself?
What skill would you have needed to have a smoother week?
What was THE most important thing that contributed to this win?
Joy and Purpose
What aspect of your job brings you the most satisfaction?
What makes you feel like your job is important?
What is one thing that you are really looking forward to in the next week?
What is something you get to do in your job that you really like/love?
What are you most looking forward to over the next weeks?
Very Insightful
Find a metaphor and finish the sentence “Work is like ... right now.”
Draw an animal that best describes an aspect of how your past month was at work (My favorite! Read about it here).
Where would you like to be if you were not here, and why?
If you meet online, invite your team to answer one of those questions shortly in the chat. This will only take a few minutes and creates good vibes.
Some questions are brave questions. If your team answers that they do not feel that their job is important or that they do not like anything about their job, read those warning signs and act. The turnover cost is high.
Pro tip:
You do not need to be a manager to ask one of those questions in a team meeting. Stir things up a bit!
What is your favorite question?
Saving this list with so many powerful questions!
My favorite is the metaphor one because you can them visualize through drawings what they imagine. Thank you for these questions!