☀️ Weekly Team Meetings Summer Series ☀️

Each week this summer, I'm answering reader questions about weekly team meetings. New here? Click here to read the first issue in this series​

In this week's newsletter

• Q: What do I do if people won't actively participate in the weekly team meeting?
• Warm-up and check-out questions you can use this week
• Weekly Bird Break

Q: What do I do if people won't actively participate in the weekly team meeting?

A: Start with clear expectations. If that doesn’t solve it, get curious. Look at structure, reinforcement, and psychological safety.

Have you been explicit about your meeting engagement expectations and why they matter?

Before we can hold someone accountable to an expectation, it’s important they know about and buy into it on some level. If you haven’t yet done this, spend a few minutes writing yours out. For example:

I expect everyone to participate in every weekly meeting. If anyone is unsure how this week’s topics are relevant to them, they should ask at least one question. This is important because our decision-making and work products are stronger when everyone contributes, and a key objective of this meeting is that we all deepen our understanding of how our work is interconnected. Participating in this way embodies our company value of [INSERT RELEVANT VALUE].

You don’t actually need to share this in writing. I recommend working your expectations into housekeeping verbally at your next meeting and reinforcing in one-on-ones, especially when onboarding someone new.

Have you structured your meeting to align with those expectations?

If you say you want everyone to participate, but then talk at people the whole time and pack the agenda so tightly there’s no time for questions, it’s no wonder people aren’t participating. To align a meeting with the expectations above you might:

• Start with a warm-up and ensure everyone answers
• Split folks into pairs to brainstorm questions (or discuss how a topic relates to each person's work)
• Build dedicated question time into the agenda

More ideas for structuring engagement here.

How are those expectations rewarded/enforced?

If someone isn’t participating, but they never get feedback OR they are met with, “take that question offline,” when they do speak up, you're sending mixed signals. Reflect on the ways you are implicitly and explicitly reinforcing your expectations (or contradicting them!).

What to do instead: if someone who doesn’t participate often asks a question, take the time to thank them and answer it thoroughly to make it more likely they’ll do so again.

Still not participating? Get curious.

In a one-on-one say, “I’ve noticed you don’t speak up much in the team meeting. What’s getting in the way? What’s one thing I can do to make it easier for you to participate?”

Or try it as a check-out question (see below).

Then address the blockers you surface:

Blocker: People don’t know each other well enough.

Try: Add more relationship-building time through the warm-up question (see below).

Blocker: People have different comfort levels with public speaking.

Try: Put people in smaller groups first to test-drive ideas before sharing in a big group; let people know participating in the chat is OK.

Blocker: People don’t feel safe expressing their opinions in your meeting.

Try: Ask for input in a more specific way, designed to solicit real opinions. Example from Harvard Business School Professor, Frances Frei, “who can articulate a different point of view?” This phrasing doesn’t ask someone to own the alternate POV, just explain it. And publicly thank people when they share “risky” feedback or input.

Blocker: People don’t like being put on the spot.

Try: Message the reluctant participant before the meeting saying, “I’m going to ask everyone’s opinion on X and I’m going to call on you first, so please draft a couple bullets in advance.” For the first couple times, you might even offer to review their bullets before the meeting to de-risk it for them.

Ask yourself

Meeting Minute

Use these to start and end your meetings this week

​Warm-up question​

You can pick pairs based on who knows each other the least well or who needs to strengthen their relationship. People need to ask a lot of questions and share more than three things to find three in common. When you bring everyone back together you can ask “what was the most surprising thing you had in common?” and ask for a few volunteers to share. This builds even more understanding and common ground across pairs.

​Check-out question​

You can ask people to share verbally, up on a [virtual] whiteboard, or in an anonymous survey after the fact.