Hi!

🍂 As the year begins to wind down and the holiday season draws near, it's the perfect time to reflect and prepare for a fresh start in the new year. Everybody ~loves to hate~ meetings, but we encourage you to work with your team to find ways to change that sentiment! One way you can do this is by creating meeting norms.

What Are Meeting Norms?

Think of them as your team's shared playbook for meetings. They are the agreed-upon behaviors and expectations that guide how you conduct meetings. Meeting norms create a structure that keeps your meetings on track, productive, and engaging.

They aren't limited to what happens during the meeting itself! They extend to pre-meeting preparations, active engagement, and follow through post-meeting. Some examples of norms are:

• Include a clear agenda in all meeting invites

• Keep Monday mornings meeting-free to reserve time for individual work

• Provide meeting summaries within 1 business day with all action items and owners

• Schedule meetings for 50 minutes instead of 1 hour to allow for time to decompress between meetings

Meeting Norms Are a Game Changer

🎯 Enhance Productivity: Meeting norms provide a well-defined structure for your meetings, keeping them focused and purpose-driven.

🚀 Boost Engagement: When you have norms in place that clarify roles and attendees at meetings, this promotes active participation and encourages attendees to contribute their ideas, express their opinions, and collaborate effectively. 

💪🏻 Strengthen Team Culture: Meetings are team culture in action. Adherence to meeting norms reinforces shared values and creates a more cohesive team.

⬇️ Reduce Wasted Time: Meeting norms address communication methods, roles, and expectations to help you make the most of your valuable time. No more unnecessary meetings or meetings with unnecessary attendees. They demonstrate respect for your team members' schedules and responsibilities.

Start Fresh in the New Year with Meeting Norms

Creating effective meeting norms is a collaborative process. If you’re ready to give it a try, here are some steps you can follow: 
 

1. Gather Your Team: Bring your team together to discuss what they’d like to see in the meeting culture. This ensures that norms reflect the team's collective values. You may want to consider doing this in an online whiteboard tool like Miro or Mural. 

    

2. Choose Your Focus Areas: Discuss everyone’s contributions and converge on the norms and improvements you’d like to see. Clearly outline the expected meeting behaviors and practices and decide how you will hold each other accountable.

3. Document Norms and Commit: Write down the agreed-upon norms and distribute them to all team members. Make sure they are easily accessible for reference.

    

4. Implement Gradually: Allow time for everyone to adjust to the new norms. Start with a trial period and revisit the norms periodically to make improvements.

If this is something you’d like to work on together, please reach out to us. We’d be happy to facilitate a meeting norms workshop for your team. 
 

Wishing you successful and norm-guided meetings ahead!

Other things we’ve been doing:

🎙 Listening to Adam Grant’s podcast: “Why Meetings Suck and How to Fix Them” - highly recommend!

📝 Planning for 2024 and how we can bring the most value to you and your teams. We know the beginning of a new year can be busy with resolutions and goals, so we've put together an interactive workshop on prioritization techniques. Email us if you're interested in bringing this to your organization!

🧩 Playing Connections on the NYT.

📀 Playing 1989 (Taylor’s Version) on repeat, which then inspired us to create this Brainstorming (Taylor’s Version) Miro template.